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Great Grandfather McFarlane, Jake, came from what he called ’the waister-maist hoose (Wester-most house) in Linlithgow’ (on the Forth). He started a shoemaker shop in Kilsyth, got married and took the room above the shop. His little wife died, having their first baby. Her dying words to her best friend were "Take care o’ Jake for me." That friend was Janet Wilson. I don’t know the name of the little lady who died, only that her baby died with her.

The family that Jake went on to have were by Janet Wilson; eight in all, seven boys and one girl. All still in that room above the shop. But then Janet’s uncle, Joseph Wilson, heard that the cottage by the dam was standing empty. This was ’Lochside Cottage’, also known as ’The Dam’, by the Colzium Estate, and it was given to them rent-free for their lifetime aunt Jen said, written in her recipe book, just in pencil: "we came here in 1895" - horse and cart and 8 children! How they must have loved it. The barn became the shoe shop or ’boot makers’, mostly boots were worn in those days.

 Great Grandfather Jake McFarlane was an elder in the Church; a Covenanter, a fisherman, and a Curling champion.

*~*
 History and Origins of Curling:  "There are strong and credible claims that Kilsyth is the true birthplace of the "roaring game". The first written reference to a contest using stones on ice come from the records in 1541 from Paisley Abbey, Renfrew, although the word appeared in print in Perth in 1220. By 1511 some form of organised curling was taking already place in the Stirlingshire and Kilsyth areas. But for the records, in 1716, the world’s first known (and still surviving) curling club was founded in Kilsyth...  The old curling pond at Colzium Estate, still exists, now a favourite picnic site and beauty spot.  Public curling also took place at Banton Loch."

 *~*

 A further mention must be made of the fishing because there was a long-drawn out court case whereby the McFarlane’s right to fish in the loch was challenged on account of there being a footpath between the cottage and the loch. Maybe my son Ross has the whole story straight because I think he went over the details with John when he lived at the Cottage.  How and ever, the case went all the way to the House of Lords, the highest court in the land before it was settled!!

 The boys were brought up with that very strict fathering, in the old style, and most took off abroad; to Canada, South Africa, Australia.

 Of the sons, Uncle Duncan or ’grandfather’ Duncan McFarlane, as we knew him, became an Evangelist, opening the Mission Hall in London. My own dad, Guy Browning, had his personal unforgettable experience, of seeing Duncan transfigured, of seeing the Christ in him. So that, when he got his Call, as he ploughed the field; "Go for Me to London and help with the Mission!", he was ready and willing to serve with Duncan McFarlane in the Mission Hall.

 Now you will begin to understand how our lives became so thoroughly entwined. He was not alone in seeing this transfiguration. Another saw, and that was Agnes Robertson, who was to become Duncan’s wife, and also serve in the Mission where I was born. You see, I knew my dear mother-in-law my whole life. And  the one whom she married was this uncle Duncan or ’Grandfather’, as he became known to so many folk. So that was Duncan (see him in the photo, in the front row, next to his sister Jen; the one with his legs crossed), the oldest son of Jake and Janet, and father of my Duncan.

 His youngest brother, Joe, he was a ’card’ as people used to say; lots of fun, and kindly. Somehow the story survived of his having a lark and it nearly cost him his job; stuck his foot out to trip the person going by behind him, not realizing it was his eldest brother and boss (Duncan) and quickly had to feign injury to cover his mischief, else he would certainly have lost his job at the Kilsyth grocers shop. His quick thinking saved him as his big brother rushed to his aid with sympathy: "Are you hurt Joe!!"

Joe went to America to ’mak siller’ (make silver) but tragically, he broke his neck in a swimming accident out there, and only 21 years of age. Ah, his poor mother. It must have broken her heart. He used to dance her round the kitchen saying  "Say Ai’m the best son ye’ve got!" "Ye’re one of the best!" she would reply, laughing at his antics. And round he would take her again: "Say Ai’m the best son ye’ve got!" "Ye’re one of the best!" she always would repy.

 I picture her, a lovely tolerant mother. Tucking her boys up at night she would say, "Now boys, remember that wee text: "Thou God see’st me." Uncle Duncan, as I knew him, would tell this story of himself; starting to greet (to cry). "What’s the matter with you, Duncan?" his mother asked. "Ah got tu’pence today for hodding a hoorse and spent a penny o’ it!" (He was supposed to bring home anything he might get). Or another day when he was sent to wash the step outside but he just washed the close (the passage) so that the boys outside wouldn’t see him doing women’s work. That was the step and the close where they lived in the room over the shop in Kilsyth, before they all moved to Lochside Cottage. That little shop below the room became Duncan’s own grocery shop when he was grown up and had done his training with the Co-Op in Kirkintulloch, Kirky for short: 7 miles to walk there and 7 miles back. His father Jake would walk out to meet him coming home at night. Goodness; precious memories! God alone knows when they got time to sleep, with all their long hours in the day.

 Jake’s son Duncan had a first marriage before the one I knew. What a sad story of Duncan’s first family, living in Packburn, right opposite the shop in Kingston Road. He had a little girl then, just 2 years old, old enough to toddle out to meet him as he came home to lunch. She died of convulsions, cutting her back teeth. Ah, life in death. The days that are nevermore to return. I heard these stories at his knee in the Mission Hall when I was still very young. Perhaps I reminded him of his own wee girl. His second marriage produced 5 boys and no girls.

 Between all the years I lived under the same roof as ’grandfather’ Duncan McFarlane and Agnes Robertson, I probably heard more stories than most. But I was to learn still more stories when I came to live at Lochside in the 1980’s, and put in 10 years; a whole decade, after so much water under the bridge!! One day, I was along at the nursery  and a voice behind me just like his father (!) said "Can I help ye ma dear?" "Oh thanks," I said, "I can manage." "Have ye far to go?" "No," says I "Just along the Dam Side." "And whit hoose would that be?" says he. "Lochside Cottage." I reply and, he , with a twinkle in his eye said "Say nay mair."

 It turned out this was Andrew, the oldest son from ’grandfather’s’ first marriage and he had a story of coming out to Grandfather Jake, the bootmaker, as a child, sent by his mammy to get these boots mended. And Jake told Andrew quite definitively that the boots were done (no good, not worth repairing.). Poor child, turned away in tears, but Joe, that youngest son of Jake, went after him and said "Just tell yer mammy that the laces are good!"  So he dried his tears and went home happy at that!

 Back to Jake’s boys: The day when one of the younger brothers, uncle Jimmy, took his father to Glasgow to see shoes being made in a factory, by machine!! Jake McFarlane couldn’t believe it, the beginnings of the modern world! Uncle Jimmy trained as an engineer and went on to open his own factory in London, in Wandsworth and named it the ’Colzium Knitwear Factory’ and my Duncan was his knitting machine mechanic before and after we were married!

Then there was uncle John. He stayed in Kilsyth and married Maggie Shaw; a lovely lady, heart of gold, so kind to John and to everyone around. We have a framed certificate in the family, for uncle John, crowned a hero for rescuing a boy that was drowning in the loch. Uncle Bill went to Canada and sang on the radio; Gospel songs! Years later we were given some old 78 records and there he was with his beautiful bass voice, and his brogue, again, just like ’grandfather’: "Look to the Lamb of God, for He alone is able to save you, look to the Lamb of God!" Uncle Alec went to South Africa.

 So now Jake and Janet’s only daughter Jenny, aunt Jen to us, was the one in the homestead when came her parent’s time of passing. Remember, her parents were given the Cottage rent-free for their lifetimes, and aunt Jen had to either move out or buy the cottage! Everybody said, Sell it Jenny! It will just be a millstone round your neck!! They were Godly folk, so she prayed. And when her brother John asked her; Jenny, what are you going to do? She said "My God says; Forward Still, ’tis Jehovah’s Will! So uncle John says, Then Jenny, A’ll help ye... Just beautiful! And that’s what he, did ’til travelling day’s were done; kept the grounds so well, until well into his 80s. He was known all around as ’John O’ the Loch’ on account of having saved those boys from drowning.

 Well I’ve said almost all I know about Janet Wilson and Jake McFarlane, except that aunt Jen told the story of when her father got on his high horse and read them the riot act, her mother would say "Quaitness is a bonny spring." And when she was on her dying bed her eldest son, the Evangelist, said to her "Have you got on the wedding garment Mother?" And she answered "Yes my son, I have." Grandfather Jake McFarlane was not interested in living when she was gone and sat down to die saying, "A’m goin’ tae be wi’ ma Janet." So beautiful again. I heard the lady say on Radio 4 Poetry Please; they even died with such dignity in those days. So true!!

 So, yes!! Aunt Jen, the one wee lassie, with some help from her brothers, and from my own grandfather Hassan, bless him; he paid one quarter, one hundred pounds sterling, of what it cost to buy the Cottage. It cost 400 pounds sterling in 1921. In the end it was aunt Jen who was led to secure the Cottage, and it was aunt Jen who first heard John Reid preach. You don’t mean to tell me it was a woman who brought the message home?! That’s right! It was aunt Jen! And all those happy bygone days of Lochside Cottage? That was all aunt Jen’s bright day.

 Well her brother, Duncan McFarlane, did take John Reid to be his Teacher and, when John Reid passed, it was Duncan who got the Inner Word to take up the mantle * (* the cloak of Divine authority; "place the mantle of authority on younger shoulders"). So he was set to be my father-in-law and my spiritual leader. I first went to Lochside Cottage, or ’The Dam’, as they used to more often call it back then, when I was a teenager; just 16. I went for the New Year ’conference’ which was what our religious group called the Meeting at that time of year.

 I will tell the story of this happy day but first I will follow the trail years into the future when I have borne 7 children of my own, raised them all in the same house in Wimbledon we took as newly weds, hosted conferences and meetings as big as any seen at Lochside in the old days... and now my youngest child came home from school, at the age of 15, looking like she’d seen a ghost: "Tell them I came", he said... (Walter De La Mare, The Listeners). Turned her blood cold; this strange premonition...

 ’Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest’s ferny floor:

And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller’s head
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
’Is there anybody there?’ he said.

 But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.

Only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:

Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller’s call.

 And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
’Neath the starred and leafy sky;

For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:-
’Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word,’ he said.

Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:

Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.

 The poem said to her; this (Wimbledon) house that had been so full of life ( just as I remembered ’The Dam’ being in the old days), would not always be so. The possibility she had never entertained was chilling to her. As it unfolded, one brother, now left entirely alone in Lochside Cottage since the dear aunts who had raised him passed away, needed support. I packed an overnight bag, never to return, though I didn’t know it then. Her dad was going to wrap up our affairs in London and come and join me at Lochside but he died of a massive heart attack. The fore-shadowing she had seen had come to pass and I would subsequently make my home in Lochside Cottage, back in Scotland once more. All so sudden. But it would be a dream that first told me something big was coming.

This was not the first time in my life that I had been prepared for a major life change by a night dream. Three years before I actually went to Lochside to live, I had one of those dreams.  Although I now have a history in other peoples’ eyes as someone who has these kind of dreams, it certainly isn’t a commonplace occurrence. But when they do come, you can’t help but sit up and take notice. In 1982, out of the blue I dreamed of ’grandfather’ Duncan McFarlane, (my father-in-law and spiritual Teacher) by then long since gone. In the dream he was standing on the footbridge over the dam, that leads to Lochside Cottage. Unlike his larger-than-life presence that I well remember from his hay days, he had a great sadness upon him. He turned to me and said "I did not know God was Love..... " Then he asked me, "Can you turn a car around?" And I said "Yes."

 I awoke knowing exactly what he was asking me. There was only one place in our world where it mattered that much if you could turn a car around; coming round the loch side to The Dam, steering along that rough dirt track on the very edge of the water ’til you came to the dam footbridge, beyond which a car could not go. Yes, everything was carried in from there! So that was the place where you had to do a three-point-turn and if you didn’t do it right, you’d end up in the drink! Well! When ’grandfather’ died I had not learned to drive, nor had any reason to ever learn that I could see, but then, with my husband’s first heart attack, we realized that me not driving would be a real handicap in this day and age, especially if he was gone. So I was a late learner but, Yes! I could turn a car around! And if I was being Called to go to Lochside, I would go. In fact, I would not dream of saying No, remembering my poor grandmother’s experience when she had refused to go when asked.

 Well I did take the dream to the Leader of our group, and it was left with him and I did not go for 3 more years. In the meantime, the last surviving character of the old Lochside, my Duncan’s brother John, was struggling on at the cottage alone and that situation became impossible for him. You have to understand that they all came from a time and place where the women took care of the domestic side of life and man played his part bringing home the wages. That’s what John did all his life; bring his pay packet home to the two aunts who had faithfully raised him and cared for his every need. So when they were gone there was a terrible gap in his life and he really didn’t know what to do for the most practical things.

As it turned out, I was not the first one to try and ’fill the gap’. My youngest son and his beautiful New Zealand wife, shortly to have their first child; they went to try to make a home there and be a support for John besides. It is important to say here that this was the Meeting way; to see where the need was and to see who might fill the need. So this was one of those situations; the young ones needed a home and the brother needed assistance. If all parties could benefit, so much the better!

 Well! It turned out to be the worst winter on record! Poor little things! Hauling wood across the frozen loch, the cottage with no modern conveniences and, poor Delwyn used to sunnier climes, thought they’d been sent to Siberia!! And then she fell, coming along the loch side in all the ice and snow, and she, almost 9 months gone. It was very, very hard for them. And then she made history at the local hospital for having the biggest baby on record, poor child! And that boy, wee Douglas, I must tell you because I will never forget, was no more than 5 when my Duncan, his grandad died, and he came to my bedside as I lay there in the early morning and called to me  "Nanny... I smell tea getting cold!"  Bless him!! Now full-grown on the other side of the world!

 Well it was no life for the young ones. They made their way back to New Zealand, made their home in a more gentle place, in Delwyn’s grandmother’s house, beloved from her childhood. Three lovely boys!! Bless them all!!

 Well, I was going to tell you about that first Lochside conference that I attended in the New Year of 1946 when I was 16. It was a moment in time that I will remember for the rest of my days because of the joy I felt and to be with all our friends again after the long and lonely War years, and it was when I first met my dearest friend Nancy (we two are friends to this day!). But also because it was on that day, on the way back home to granma’s cottage, with my own daddy driving us and so happy, and me in the back of the car as we were going over the Stockie Muir, that was when I got my Calling; "Someone will knock when the door is shut!! Shall you, shall, I?"

 But I don’t want to forget to tell you, I was not the only one that Had My Day at Lochside Cottage as a youth. My husband Duncan too. He was 18 years old when he attended a Meeting there and he took everyone’s breath away when he stood up ’out of the blue’ and sang, sang this beautiful old hymn all the way through:

 By cool Siloam’s shady rill
How fair the lily grows!
How sweet the breath, beneath the hill,
Of Sharon’s dewy rose!

 Lo! such the child whose early feet
The paths of peace have trod,
Whose secret heart, with influence sweet,
Is upward drawn to God.

 By cool Siloam’s shady rill
The lily must decay;
The rose that blooms beneath the hill
Must shortly fade away.

 And soon, too soon, the wintry hour
Of man’s maturer age
Will shake the soul with sorrow’s power
And stormy passion’s rage.

 O Thou Whose infant feet were found
Within Thy Father’s shrine,
Whose years with changeless virtue crowned,
Were all alike divine.

 Dependent on Thy bounteous breath,
We seek Thy grace alone,
In childhood, manhood, age, and death
To keep us still Thine own.

*~*~*

 Well! That was the story of Duncan’s life, and the stormy seas he was to cross before he was gathered home; his song to cease when it had scarce begun! A forestry man back then and he loved the old place, loved to lend his strength and skill. He was a lovely man. And it was my granma, Margaret Houston- Browning, who brought him up at her wee cottage in Gartocharn while his mum and dad travelled for the Mission Work.

 So it was Duncan’s brother left in Lochside Cottage all alone and it was decided that Duncan and I could give up the house at Wimbledon now that the children were all independent, and move up to Lochside to help with the situation. So I went ahead while Duncan set to the task of wrapping up our affairs in Wimbledon. He was a driving instructor with his own school.

It was so sad to come back to Lochside in 1985 and see it so neglected. But I believed we could make it a happy place once more. How the young ones loved it. And Duncan loved it too. Now he could retire here and after all, he was the country man, of all his brothers, and always loved the old homestead. But he was not destined to be at Lochside, nor to return to Scotland. He gave his last driving lesson, drove the car home, parked the car and slumped over the wheel; a massive heart attack.

 Another shock! Another loss!! How was I supposed to cope now, restoring the waste places, all alone? This I Know; that I am never alone, and even so, these are the moments that test our Faith. I had to clear out our home of 38 years down in Wimbledon. What’s it all about, they say, a little bit of this and a little bit of that; like the wee moose, it cost us many a-weary nibble, and all those years to make it what it was. Now ’49’, our Wimbledon house, had to be sold, since I had no ’breadwinner’. At least we were lucky that it could be sold on to my own son and his wife with their wee ones, so that we could put everything in order. And I couldn’t have wished for a better daughter-in-law, to look after it and make it so lovely.

 And now at Lochside, without my McFarlane man and with what was now  a Southern tongue to the ears of folks in these parts, I first had to weather their appraisal of "that wummun!!" at Lochside, who didn’t belong, and all the talk because John was not my husband, and then the suitors, who had no more interest in me than that I could cook and clean!! Not much fun I can tell you!! And then, my dear brother, George, who also had a great love for his father’s country, would come and help out and wanted to do more, much more, then, like my Duncan, he shocked us all with his early death in ’91. Too soon. Too soon.

And still, never alone: as my little granddaughter, Jessie, wrote in my notebook back then (and she only 10 years old): Don’t be afraid Nanny, it’s Christmas!! How lovely! What a tremendous help she was to me through it all. She would sit and play ’banks’ with John (now he, of our generation, her ’Great Uncle John!). She made him very happy, writing out big cheques for him! Worked wonders!!

 So to work on the Cottage on my own: plumbing useless, earthen floor, no bathroom, no proper kitchen, walls crumbling. My neighbour recommended a man who came along to survey the old homestead: "It wid be easier," he said "to tak’ it doon an’ pit it up agin, as mess aboot wi’ it!" The old stone wall that surrounded the back of the house, Duncan had said anyway he would take it down to give us a view across the valley, the builder said he could use those stones, to give the place height and, that way there’d be room enough for a bathroom. So began the biggest project of my life, and so late in the day! But the children loved it. Here they wept for their father, rambled far and wide through the countryside, launched their rafts and canoes, picnicked on the wee island, came to laugh again. Then sailed away, one by one to the lands of their dreams. Go with God and be at Peace; I always loved that old Jewish saying!

 There’s many more ways to tell it of course. Maggi, my youngest, came back and, with her New Zealand husband, moved in to support me and try and make a go of it. Always hard to get work here, just like her brother before her. And I had a couple of lovely lodgers to help with everything too. But all the time I was getting older and less able to manage all the hardships of living so far from amenities. We celebrated my 70th birthday at Lochside; everybody surprised me and for a brief moment in time the Cottage was filled with life and laughter again.

In the end, the cottage was sold, but stalled, sold but stalled, with court hearings about the right-of-way. Because when we restored the Cottage we also made provision for Lochside Cottage residents to finally be able to drive right up to the door but that meant approaching from the back instead of along the dam. Coming from the road through the back way meant coming under a railway bridge and through the farm, and that was the problem, over the farmer’s land. So back and forth we wrangled, trying to sort it out...

  And the cry goes up; How Long!! And the Still Small Voice says"

 Give to the winds they fears
Hope and be undismayed
God hears thy sighs and counts thy tears
He shall lift up thy head..

 So in the final hour, it’s councillors, M.P.s, solicitors and farmers, all trying to decide what to do with us!!!. It dragged on and you could say it was the second historic Case of Lochside Cottage, both involving a right-of-way(!!) and we should count our blessings that it didn’t go all the way to the House of Lords the second time!!

 My time in Lochside Cottage was a trial by fire in many ways. Out on my own, learning to think for myself and fully lean on that Still Small Voice Within. Like the time I was invited along to the old Church by a good friend, and I thought, Oh No, I don’t want to get caught up in the old ways again!! But then the Voice I trust said quite plainly; “Do not slight the invitation!! The feast is prepared for all!!” So I went along and, Hallelujah!!  "This Hall," the Preacher at the pulpit was saying, "opened in 1897, and the God they preached had a black robe and a big stick in his hand!" Wow!!!  They too, had swept the fire and brimstone out the door and were teaching “Love One Another”.

 For once, I could have jumped up and shouted, "Amen!!"

 I wasn’t obliged to go there on a regular basis and I never did. I was just being shown that the old ways that no longer served us were indeed dying away, not just for our People.

 So I lived and learned to stand on my own two feet. I will always remember, through one long lonely winter at the cottage, feeling isolated and cast away, there was visible, through the kitchen window, one soft white swan feather, that clung to the hedge through all the long winter storms, through terrific wind and battering rain, through the hard frost and snowstorms; made it all the way through to the Spring; me and the tiny swan feather both. So I was tested to the limits of my Faith but surely there was always something steadfast, even in the darkest hour, just as Churchill had said in the darkest hour of the War:

 *~*

 April 19th 1941 - Churchill broadcast:. he ended up with the following lines:

  "For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in the main.

  And not by Eastern windows only
When the daylight comes, comes in the light.
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
But westward, look, the land is bright."

 Quoting Arthur Hugh Clough from "Say not the struggle nought availeth".
  *~*

  Well, I have said many times

 "The half was never told!!"

 And my American son-in-law will tease me gently, that the other half was told a thousand times!! But how and ever, perhaps with the laying out of all the pieces that if I lived a thousand years I could never forget, then just maybe, this World that was the only World we knew, will come alive for you. just like it was for me with my beloved picture books: the characters seeming to walk clean off the page!!

 Bless Us All, said Tiny Tim!!

 Bless Us All, says ’wee Cathy’.

Oh, and why was I always ‘wee Cathy’, even when I ‘wasna’ sae wee’! That was because my dear dad’s young sister, who died in childbirth, she was called Cathy, dearly beloved and sorely missed by all who knew her, so, therefore, I felt the love they had for her all my life.