We had a very vibrant session this afternoon, with every seat in the tea room occupied, and a pleasant hub-bub of chattering activitiy! Unfortunately, for you, this means I don't have any sound clips to share; because the background blethering was too overpowering to single out any one voice. And unfortunately for me, it means there was no leftover cake for me to scoff! Actually, I'm fibbing on both counts; there was one spare slice of cake to take home, and I've managed to pull one funny story from the recordings, see below.

We had a really fun session this week, with the ladies holding forth on such topics as hot water in bathrooms, "Onion Johnnies", Jim Crow stone, powder mills, "tackety boots", parraffin ovens and angry celebrities! Well, if you can count Emma Thompson's husband as a celebrity.

If, like me, you're wondering what "Onion Johnnies"are, then maybe you'll be familiar with the image of a Frenchaman on a bicycle with strings of onions around his neck?

This week was a very interesting session! We only had one person attend, but were were lucky in that it was our favourite red head lady from week 1. And she's a lifelong resident of Kilmun, so she was a mine of information. In fact, I think we wore her out aksing so many questions! We heard stories about the dances in Kilmun Hall, a bounty of oranges washing up on the shores of Holy Loch, and tales of having picnics on the fallen gravestones in the church yard. Here she is recounting memories of the 10th Duke of Argyll's Internment in the mausoleum: 

This week our Cowal Connections social was joined by some regulars and some new attendees, one of whom is the lady who married the Minister's son. Not the current minister of course, but Reverend Gillen. We heard how the key to our Mausoleum used to be jealously guarded by the Campbells at Inveraray, and you had to get special permission to open the doors. She recalls being disappointed when she first saw inside! She also talked about getting the strap in Dunoon Grammar School, how you aren't tell your parents or they'd give you a hiding too!