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2005
PETER AITKEN - " Fair
Enough”
As I was born in 1936 I had
a long wait to be introduced
to my first Fair Day, thanks
to the intervention of Mr
Hitler. It was not until
1946 that I had first hand
experience of our once a
year day. Of course long
before this I had been
taught the words and music
of both Fair Songs at my
mother’s knee, and they were
there for life. My elder
sister Jean had been a fairy
two years in succession,
firstly in 1934 when Nellie
Young was the first and only
Queen to hail from the Snab,
then the following year when
the girl who had been chosen
to be a fairy took ill, and
Jean took her place. Not
the same dress of course, my
grandparents made sure of
that. I do wonder of
course, was there ever any
other girl in Bo’ness who
can make claim to twice
being a fairy at the Fair in
successive years?
During the war years the
miners at Kinneil Colliery
organised an annual Gala Day
held at the park which at
that time surrounded the
Kinneil Welfare Bowling
Green and stretched from
Castleloan to the Snab Brae,
now the location of
Wotherspoon Drive/Angus Road
etc. My recollection of
this is a trifle sketchy but
there were races, tug of
war, football, best of all
for us there were sticky
buns and fizzy lemonade.
However one thing that does
stick in my memory and that
was going up the Snab Brae
to the festivities, dressed
in my best bib and tucker,
along with two of my older
sisters Grace and Nan. At
the top of the Brae we were
stopped by Tom Mulholland
and each presented with a
rosebud from his Aunt Mary’s
garden, which was pinned to
the girl’s dresses and was
inserted into the buttonhole
of my jacket. This became a
yearly ritual that we looked
forward too, and of course
the weather was always
glorious. To this day if I
possibly can, I try to wear
a rosebud from my garden in
my lapel, this year on Fair
Day it will be yellow rose
for Kinneil School.
I was at Kinneil School when
the Fair resumed in 1946
with Sadie Potter from the
Grange School as the Queen.
We were allowed to vote for
a flower girl from our
class, however no boys were
ever chosen at that time,
but I remember when our next
door neighbour Dan Bell was
chosen as a presentee. Dan
now lives in Logan Lake,
north of Kamploops in
British Columbia in Canada.
I can remember walking the
procession with the school
that first year and this
finished at the Academy
playing fields where we got
our bags with a sticky
cookie, an apple and I think
some crisps. The following
years before going on to the
Academy I marched with the 9th
West Lothian Scout troop in
the procession.
As for me I guessed that I’d
had my lot as far as being a
character at the Fair when I
moved from Kinneil School to
the Academy in 1949.
However my first year there
was the Academy’s turn to
have the queen and Margaret
Carson was duly voted Queen
Elect.
So the search was on to find
the two smallest boys in the
school to be page boys and
lo and behold I was placed
on the short leet only to
have my hopes dashed when
John Ballantine from the
Muirhouses and my class mate
Willie Stirling from Lothian
Street were chosen. My
memories that day were of
being part of the First Year
Boys Gymnastic Team, who
presented a display to
entertain the crowds at the
Academy playing fields where
the revels were held.
As the years progressed I
was part of the Queen’s
Guard of Honour for Margaret
Henderson from Grange School
in 1951 and remember getting
completely soaked.
We were a sorry sight with
the specially prepared
beautifully steamed and
ironed brims of our
Baden-Powell hats giving way
under the deluge; we really
were “Drookit Craws” that
day.
The year 1953 proved to be a
memorable one, as the 9th
West Lothian Scout Troop
embarked on their first ever
foreign camping trip to
Sweden. This came about
following a Scout Jamboree
at Blair Atholl the previous
year, when Walter Carlyle
became friends with a Swede
from the town of Boras near
Gothenburg and our leaders
negotiated our trip there.
At this point you may be
wondering what this has to
do with the Fair, if so read
on. We left Bo’ness the
week prior to the Fair but
decided that on “The Day” we
would have our own “Wee
Fair”. Our campsite at that
time was on an island in a
lake near the town so we had
everything arranged. The
idea was that we would have
our ceremony at 10am to
coincide with the Bo’ness
crowning to make up for the
one hour time difference.
The “Queen” was Jim
McFarlane, who was
eventually to become the
Managing Director of a
company with over 3,000
employees working for the
nuclear power industry. The
Champion was Eddie Armitt, a
position he had one year
later when Mary Gibson was
an Academy queen, the herald
was Albert Sheehan who is
now one of the Sheriff’s at
Falkirk Sheriff Court, other
senior scouts taking part
included Walter Carlyle,
former General Manager BP
Grangemouth, Dick Patrick,
Eric Frank, Drew Rogers.
As I had brought my
accordion along to play for
country dancing exhibitions,
I was Kinneil band, so we
had the Fair Songs and a few
well known Scottish marches,
this was our own Fair Day in
a “Foreign Field”. It was
fortunate that none of our
hosts arrived on the island
that day or they would have
carted us all away to have
our heads examined. Can you
imagine what their thoughts
would have been to find this
bunch of guys most of them
in their late teens,
wheeling, in a trek cart,
one of their number bedecked
in a white sheet wearing a
headband of flowers the
others dressed in an
assortment of made up
costumes following a guy
playing an accordion and all
singing songs. Guess we were
a few years ahead of the
Flower Power hippies of San
Francisco.
The ironic part of the tale
was that we crowned our
queen at 10am only to
discover on arriving back in
Bo’ness that Queen Helen
Gourlay had not been crowned
until 12 o’clock midday due
to inclement weather, so we
had in fact been first at
the crowning!! As a matter
of interest our weather was
simply scorching that day.
Although I never missed a
Fair day, my next
involvement was not until
many years later in 1975
when my son Keith was at
Deanburn School. Their
presentees that year were
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
and Keith was chosen as the
lame boy who was left behind
and had the honour of being
presented to the queen.
Needless to say I had a
small house frontage to
commemorate the occasion and
must admit I enjoyed this as
I did it all on my own, I
can also recall our Fair
night party that lasted
until 6 o’clock on the
Saturday morning!!
Following on from 1975, I
then volunteered to be a
steward which continued for
a few years. As time rolled
on we moved home to Stewart
Avenue and Keith and Joy
moved to the Public School,
then Keith’s Action Men
figures as the sailors and
we borrowed lifebelts from
the ship breaking yard to
complete the nautical
design.
At long last Joy finally got
her turn when she was a Lady
in Waiting in Queen Lesley
Anne Culbert’s court in
1982. So on went the
thinking cap again for
another house frontage, this
time a much more feminine
touch was required and we
had an archway over the gate
with a clock set at 11
o’clock and loads of flowers
leading to the country
house. The STV camera crew
were there that year and we
were chuffed to see our
creation on the telly on the
Fair night.
Due to our location close to
the Glebe Park the house was
always full to overflowing
following the coronation
ceremony, it became a toilet
stop for various foreign
bands and countless friends
and relatives dropped in for
a cuppa. Also if there were
any emergencies the Fair
Committee knew there was
always help at hand at No.
19.
At the end of 1996 I finally
retired from work and the
following year my wife was
asked to crown the Centenary
Queen, Ashley Oldham from
the Public School. What a
wonderful time we both had!
Doris-Anne thoroughly
enjoyed all the preparation
involved and great care was
taken in choosing the outfit
she wore for the coronation,
after all if you were never
a queen at the Fair the next
best thing was to be chosen
to crown the queen. She had
a great time at the
rehearsals with the children
across the road at the
school, and when the great
day finally arrived we were
delighted that it was dry
although it was rather cold,
but this was going to be a
super day no matter what the
weather. Kinneil Band came
and played for us on the
Fair morning and then it was
off across to the Town Hall
to meet the other guests.
Of course the Committee had
invited all the former
surviving Bo’ness Fair
Queen’s to attend and it was
heartening to see so many
turning out that day, and so
nice to see and speak to
some whom we had never seen
for years.
As I had worked away from
home for quite a number of
years I did not have the
opportunity to assist in any
activities, so when I
retired I decided I would
try and do my bit for the
community. I was approached
by David Hannah the
Procession Convenor of the
Fair Executive Committee
with an invite to become his
Assistant for the 1998 Fair.
Up till that point I had
never given too much thought
to the logistics of running
a procession as big as the
Fair has, I must admit it
came as a bit of a shock to
realise the amount of work
involved. Not only does
David organise the
procession, he also has the
responsibility of organising
all the bands, this is in
itself a mammoth task and is
one that he has done for 20
years. However I joined up
and did all I possibly could
to make David’s job a bit
easier. During the 6 years
I helped there were very few
hiccups. Some minor
skirmishes were quickly
resolved and the show got on
the road!!
I have now retired from the
Executive Committee an am
once more a member of the
public on the Fair day with
four grandchildren with whom
I hope to enjoy many more
Fairs. Every time I hear
and sing the Fair songs
there is always a lump in my
throat and a tear in my eye
because for me it will
always be, as in the words
of Douglas Snedden’s song
“The Best Day of the Year”.
PETER AITKEN
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