About
Crail
News
with Donald MacGregor
All welcome
w/c 25th January 2016. No. 251
There is a raffle, recipe book for sale, bake sale
and a chance to try your hand at CPR combined
with defibrillator awareness.
Please come along to support this very good cause
or you can give a donation at the following link at
the Just Giving website where you will also be
allocated a raffle ticket.
https://crowdfunding.justgiving.com/sarah-latto2
SCIO Scottish Charity No SC023505
With Professor Will Cresswell
(Will is, of course, known to many of us
through his regular weekly “Wild Crail”
articles in this Newsletter)
We are putting on an exhibition this year about
childhood in Crail. We are interested in toys,
games, children's clothes, photos and memories of
childhood in Crail between 1900 and 1960. Please
let us know if you have anything you are prepared
to lend. There may not be sufficient space in the
exhibition for everything.
You can contact us by email (office@crail
museum.org.uk) or by a note through the door of
the Museum.
Crail Folk Club’s 2016 season gets under way on
with our traditional Burns Night
event. For one night only we are in the Golf Hotel who will be providing us all with a fine meal of haggis, neeps and
tatties all included in the price of £4. How do they do it for the money I hear you ask? Please note this is our one
night of the year which is not BYOB. This doesn’t matter because the Golf Hotel is famed for its fine traditional ales.
Singers, musicians and reciters are all welcome whether their chosen material is from Burns’ back catalogue or not.
Mind you it’d be a funny old Burns event if everyone chose to sing Paul Simon
material. If, like me, you can’t play or sing then eating, drinking and listening is a
perfectly good night out.
in Crail Town Hall. It could
Our first guest night is on
even be the highlight of the year as we have the occasional duo of
, respectively BBC’s Young Traditional Singers of 2015 and
2014.
I’m sure everyone is now aware that the Post Office is to reopen in The Beehive. It will be what The Post Office
describe as a new local style branch. Post Office services will be available from a till on the retail counter in a modern
open plan branch, and the majority of Post Office products and services will be available. A period of local
consultation has begun, ending 1 March, and the proposed date of change is in April. If you want to express any views
you can via an online questionnaire at ‘postofficeviews.co.uk’ (and enter code 15084499), by email to
[email protected] or by mail to ‘FREEPOST Your Comments’.
Fife Council Emergency Resilience Team have approached the Community Council to help Crail improve and enhance
local resilience when faced with local (or national) emergencies. A number of Community Councils in Fife are
involved in developing local Community Emergency Plans, and Crail Community Council have decided that it too
should have in place a Community Emergency Plan. The broad objectives of a Community Emergency Plan are to:
1. Raise awareness and understanding of the local risk and emergency response capability in order to motivate and
support self-resilience.
2. Increase individual, family and community resilience against all threats and hazards.
3. Support and encourage effective dialogue between the community and the practitioners supporting them.
4. Provide a framework and support to enable the creation, delivery and activation of a resilient community plan.
An emergency incident can be described as an event or situation that threatens serious damage to human welfare or
the environment, or war or terrorism that threatens serious damage to the security of the UK. In practical terms
however, an emergency incident can include severe weather, a fuel crisis, a flu pandemic or a gas leak/explosion.
The most likely risk Crail faces probably relates to weather related problems, road disruption, and/or power outage,
but of course it is in the nature of risk planning that unlikely eventualities also have to be taken into account. In
addition, there may be circumstances where the emergency services may request local assistance in relation, for
example, to traffic incidents or to human criminal activity such as occurred at Dunblane, or missing children or elderly
people. It should be stressed that this is not there to reduce or replace a response from the local authority or the
emergency services but should complement and support the overall response.
Over the coming weeks, the Community Council will engage in discussions with Fife Council Emergency Resilience
Team to work out how we might best approach this. The procedure adopted by other Community Councils is to
establish a Community Council Emergency Committee. Once this is in place, an Emergency Resilience Plan will be
developed, training activities to support this will be organised, and calls will be made for volunteers to help implement
the plan.
Crail has been chosen to be one of two communities to be involved in the ENCAP programme, and the Community
Council organized a meeting attended by representatives of around 25 of the Voluntary Organisations active in Crail,
to explore what involvement in ENCAP might involve. The article written by the ENCAP Coordinator in this edition of
About Crail describes what will be involved, and what outcomes we might expect.
Crail is a wonderful place to live, not least because our natural environment facilitates good lives for both wild and
domestic animals. But in indulging our love of animals we do need to have regard of their impact on the broader
community. Two issues are sources of complaints to the Community Council; dog fouling and feeding seagulls. The
Scottish Government has increased the fixed penalty fines from 1 April for failure to clean up dog mess from £40 to
£80, and a ‘more robust’ system to tackle the issue of collecting unpaid penalties will be launched. Feeding seagulls
encourages large numbers to gather together, resulting in increased aggressive behaviour and fouling. It may seem
charitable, entertaining or amusing to feed seagulls, but they are by nature aggressive scavengers, and when in large
numbers can cause fear and distress.
The core activity of the Community Council is to
You can contact the Council personally through its members, or by email at
[email protected]
The Children’s Centre grew out of the Crail Playgroup, which initially operated in the Town Hall and
then, from 1994, in the Community Hall, and which was funded by raffles, coffee mornings and the
Balcomie meat raffle as well as subscriptions. In 1995 Ron Hardie drew up plans for modernising the
old Fife Council store in West Green and some 100k plus was sourced to fund the development. The
building was opened, as Crail Children’s Centre, by Menzies Campbell in 2001.
The Centre was managed by a committee of volunteers of whom Vince Oviatt was chair. Volunteers
received no payment and Vince could be found every day at the Centre supporting operations.
1) The Children’s Centre went into receivership in 2008 when falling numbers and a resulting loss of
income, reached the point where there were insufficient funds to cover routine expenditure on
the Centre’s upkeep, including utilities and salaries. The burden of debt included redundancy
payments.
2) Receivership went to accountants in Dundee. The building was placed on the market in 2008/9.
3) In 2009 the newly formed Crail Community Trust attempted to acquire the building for youth
activities and internet access facilities. The burden of debts made this impossible and grants were
not forthcoming so the acquisition failed. Delay approx 6months.
4) The Museum then attempted to raise funds to acquire the building for a store and workshop.
Grants were not forthcoming and the acquisition failed. Delay Plus 6months.
5) The Crail Interest Company (an upshot of the Crail 2020 group) then attempted to acquire the
building and to retain its use for youth provision in the Community (a move supported by the
Community Council in Feb 2010). This attempt failed partly because Fife Council insisted that a
loan in connection with the gifting of the building would not be relaxed). Delay of over 12
months to sale point.
6) All delays resulted in extra monthly fees to the accountants.
7) During 2011/2012 Crail Community Trust negotiated that Fife Council would permit the market
sale of the Children’s Centre and with any net gain from the sale going to the Trust on account of
the fact that its area of action is determined by postcode. The sale took place in 2012.
8) Delay from initial closure to this sale was approx 4 years. This resulted in enormous Fees to
solicitors and auditors.
9) The above information was reported at Community Council meetings and at Crail Community
Trust AGMs. It has been made clear that that there were no specific conditions attached to funds
accruing from the sale – that they were to be used for the benefit of Crail.
The East Neuk Community Action Plan (ENCAP) project invited East Neuk and Landward
communities to indicate their willingness to be the first community to come forward with plans
to develop their own Community Action Plan.
A meeting was held on Monday 18th January to discuss the possibility of Crail taking part.
Over 25 representatives of different organisations attended and unanimously voted in favour of
taking part. Project Officer Mia Gonzalez-Noda was present to answer questions.
Community actions plans are very useful if there are particular issues within your area that your community would like
to solve e.g lack of affordable housing, loss of local services, lack of employment opportunities, etc.
An action plan will summarise views about the community, its vision for the future, the issues that matter most to the
community and the priorities for projects and action.
For each community action plan throughout the East Neuk, views will be gathered from the community by issuing
surveys to all houses, holding stakeholder interviews and an open day will be held to prioritise the projects.
The next step is to form a steering group with interested members meeting this week to discuss the process further
and invitations are open for more to join.
For further information please contact Mia Gonzalez-Noda ENCAP Project Officer
[email protected] (07548182186) or Crail Community Council.
East Neuk First Responders recently took possession of a new vehicle to replace their old and increasingly unreliable
vehicle. The purchase of the vehicle was made possible by generous donations from local community groups, charitable
trusts, businesses and individuals.
A local man, George Hay, ran the Loch Ness Marathon, followed by the Glencoe Mountain Marathon and the Glen
Clova half Marathon to raise funds.
Crail Welfare Association and the Helen Main Trust made very generous donations, and East Neuk Campervans
supplied and fitted the decals.
Gillian Duncan, the groups co-ordinator said; “our vehicle is a great asset in all of our work, Event First Aid Cover,
training, defibrillator management as well as the work in partnership with ambulance service. We are extremely grateful
for the fund raising support we have had, it has been a fantastic community effort. We are still working hard to replenish
our funds and make sure we can continue to offer our life saving services in the East Neuk”.
Anyone wishing more information or to make a donation can go to www.enfr.org.uk or contact Anstruther Medical
Practice on 01333 310352.
The new Vehicle with the Responders Coordinator Gillian Duncan
The Community Council have placed a
new notice board on the Town Hall.
Half of it is for Community Notices. If
you have a notice you wish to display,
please drop it off to 17a West Gate,
Crail, or give it to any of your
Community Councillors.
It is at this time of year when I’m planning which seeds to sow for the coming season that I find my
mind wandering back to my first year as an apprentice.
Just a few months past my sixteenth birthday I found myself working at a nursery on the outskirts of London. The council
I worked for had taken the decision about a year or so before I started with them to centralise the production of plants in
order to save money and produce more consistent results. Prior to that each park was responsible for raising and growing
its own plants. A decision which made sound financial sense but I feel deprived a number of apprentices of the experience
of plant propagation as not everyone could make it to the new nursery.
However, I lived not too far away and therefore was sent to the nursery as my first placement. The feature I enjoyed most
about the nursery was the brand new glasshouse, a huge structure of just over 2 acres with a large central corridor, big
enough to drive a tractor and trailer through, which had 4 zones arranged along each side. Each zone could be treated as
an individual glasshouse with its own temperature, irrigation and ventilation routine controlled via a centralised computer
system. One of the zones was subdivided into two, and were where seeds were germinated then grown on a little prior to
being moved to one of the main glasshouse zones.
The seed germinating area was always kept to a high temperature, around 850F/300C sometimes higher and it was here
seeds would be germinated and remain until their cotyledons (initial leaf like structures) were fully out. The next subdivision
was a “weening” area where germinated seeds, now young seedlings, were placed and here the temperature was slightly
cooler usually around 800F/270C. These young seedlings would remain in this “weening” area until their first set of true
leaves were out. From here the seedlings would be placed in one of the larger growing-on zones for pricking out – a
procedure of spacing out the seedlings in order to give them more room to grow. The temperature of the zone would at first
be the same as the “weening” area however, in time this temperature would be reduced in a gradual process that would start
after the seedlings were placed in their first individual pots.
Quite often we used Jiffy 7 pellets as the first pot. Jiffy 7s are hard, flat
disc-like pieces of peat free compost with a mesh outer layer that expand
to 7 times their original size when immersed in water. It was my job to
soak the pellets in warm water (we found lukewarm water made the
pellets expand slightly quicker) and when fully expanded place them in
trays ready to be planted with the seedlings. After a few weeks when the
roots started to poke through the mesh of the Jiffy 7 they were then ready
to be potted-on. Using Jiffy 7’s was very useful as it resulted in little to no root damage when moving the young plants to
their new pots, something which was quite important as we used a potting machine to speed up the potting-on process.
Once the plants were potted on to the size required for planting out the temperature of the glasshouse zone would be
gradually reduced to make them ready for going outdoors – a process known as hardening off. What was new was the use
of computing to control all the growing parameters one of which included the UV (UltraViolet) light systems. These UV
light bars increased “daylight” duration when it was still quite short in the winter and early spring enabling plants to become
larger and more robust at the time of planting out than they would otherwise be.
Most of the plants grown in the glasshouse were bedding plants and once grown were distributed all over London. This
centralised process proved very successful and did indeed improve quality as well as reducing the unit cost of each plant.
At the time this glasshouse was the height of modernity and was seen as the future.
It is many years since I worked there and out of curiosity I recently used Google’s satellite imagery to find this place and
discovered the nursery is now a car park with the glasshouse looking like it has been abandoned. This is a shame as I have
many fond memories of my time there and the lovely people I worked with who helped to train me.
Mark Johnson
The Garden Tamer
Wild Crail!
Will Cresswell
Photos by John Anderson
The weekend before last a couple of white-fronted geese were reported in a flock of pink-feet at Anstruther so I was out
first thing in the morning to try to track them down. They are not uncommon in the winter in Britain but they are very
localised and there aren’t any that winter or even turn up regularly in
Fife. I found the flock of pink-feet easily in a field behind the new Waid
School building but no white-fronts. Much of the flock was in a dip in
the field so I persisted to make doubly sure. After about twenty minutes
the whole flock became clearly visible as a dog walker pushed out into
the middle of the field. There right at the end of the flock was a goose
with bright orange legs and an orange bill – not a pink-foot, obviously,
and not a white-front either, but a bean goose. A great find. Not so rare
as a white-front but still a lucky bird to get in a year around Crail. When
you see a bean goose you need to check which sub-species they belong
The taiga bean goose this morning shot with my phone
to – either the tundra sub-species which is much rarer (from Siberia), or through my telescope – a good example of why John does
the taiga sub-species which breeds in north-western Europe and some
the photography (the geese were not on a steep hill…). It’s
the one walking right with orange legs.
of which winter in Scotland. The difference is in the longer neck and bill
giving a taiga bean goose a more swan like appearance. This one was a
taiga bean goose and a great no. 98 for the year list.
I continued on to Pittenweem and then up to Carnbee checking the fields for
more geese. Up at Carnbee there was snow cover although the reservoir was only
iced up in one corner. There were lots of tufted ducks and still the family party of
whooper swans that were there on New Year’s Day: whoopers on a snowy loch
are a proper winter image. As I drove back to Crail I saw several flocks of
fieldfares adding to the real winter feel.
The family party of whooper swans in
temporary residence at Carnbee reservoir
There are quite a few red-breasted mergansers along the coast from Caril to
Balcomie just now. A few from Balcomie on Sunday afternoon when I completed
my last NEWS count and a glorious male very close in at Roome Bay on most
days.
I walked through the stubble fields behind the Balcomie Caravan Park and Pinkerton Friday lunchtime. The ground was
saturated and the walking difficult. But skylarks and meadow pipits popped up in front of me regularly and in the corner
of the field behind Saucehope a flock of 11 corn buntings and twice the number of yellowhammers. The latter expected,
but the former still unusual. There may have been corn buntings there all this winter, but I am not used to them being
winter Crail residents yet. That there are still stubble fields around is probably significant in this.
Roome Bay has been very busy at high tide this week. Hundreds of gulls of four
species feeding in the surf with goldeneyes, mallards and eiders. They were
picking small things up from the surface of the sea as it churned and boiled: the
huge piles of wrack on the beach must have been growing lots of seaweed fly
maggots in the last two weeks and the high tides have been flushing them out.
On Saturday I cycled out to Anstruther to see if the goose flock was still out by
the new school. Another soggy adventure with the footpaths more water than
A gathering of gulls picking up seaweed fly
ground and the ground mud. But much milder with temperatures 10 degrees
maggots washed out from the wrack deposits on
higher than earlier in the week. The goose flock was in a field of winter wheat to
the beach
the north of the one it was in the weekend before. There were 230 pink-footed
geese this weekend, grouped around one of the ponds that seem to be in every field after the rain this winter. I only had
my binoculars and they wouldn’t let me get closer than a field away before starting to get agitated and shuffling away. I
would have been able to spot a white-fronted goose among them but not a bean goose so it may well have still been there.
On the way back to Crail along the main road I passed a flock of lapwing and a couple of flocks of golden plover and
curlew also in the fields. More winter birds enjoying the sudden change of weather just like me.