Biographical information and family history of the Misses Mc...

Original Track ID

SA1972.154.A1; A2; A3; A4

Original Tape ID

SA1972.154

Summary

Biographical information and family history of the Misses McGaw; the snow of 1877; childhood recollections of Damnaglaur.

Miss Ina McGaw was born at Whithorn, her sister Agnes Grace at Several in 1895. Their mother told them that in the year of the big snow, 1877, she had to stick sweeping brushes out of the doors to let people see where the doors were. That was possibly the same year that mill men returning to Glenluce from High Drummore were able to walk straight across a glen filled with snow.

Their grandfather came from High Slock; the house at Several, of which only a few stones remain, was built when he married. They explain the name Several as 'the mound or hill of the chiefs'. Several was a cheese-making farm with about 50 cattle, all milked by hand. There were two cottages at the Stane Faird (stone ford), and a dairyman, who was single, had quarters in the farmhouse. Mention of other church and house sites, and of various people and where they lived. At Damnaglaur there was a smithy, a shoemaker and a grocer.

Item Notes

On tape SA1972.155, the Misses McGaw clarify that the mill was a
travelling threshing mill.

Recording Location

Item Location

Language

English

Genre

Information

Collection

SoSS

Source Type

Reel to reel

Audio Quality

Good