Talks
January 2017 Meeting
Our first meeting of the new year will take place on Thursday 19th January at 7:30 pm in the Abbey Church Halls, as usual.
Hugh Walker will present “The History of Sanitation”. This talk comes to Dunfermline Historical Society highly recommended and should prove an interesting and entertaining evening.
Hugh was brought up in Coventry, and after graduating, spent his working life in the electronics industry at Hewlett-Packard South Queensferry, working in design and marketing of products for the telecom industry. His local history interests include Dunfermline’s Linen Industry, and he wrote two books on the subject in the early 1990s which were published by the Carnegie Trust. His current project is recording the history of the HP South Queensferry factory which closed in 2010 and has since been demolished. Hugh’s interest in sanitation stemmed from some DIY projects a few years ago and the search for a toilet with a realistic flush!
All welcome.
December 2016 Meeting
Our Christmas social event this year will be held on Thursday 8th December, in the Abbey Church Hall. This year, we have arranged something we haven’t done before – we are having a film show. Talisman Films Scotland will be presenting “Nostalgic Dunfermline”.
There will be two films, Brian Ovenden, the Chairman of Talisman Films will introduce them and Gordon Ellis will answer questions afterwards. Gordon, along with his wife Maryanne and Bill Gourlay founded Talisman 34 years ago.
This promises to be a very enjoyable evening and we hope to see you all there, but please remember this is an event for Society members only.
November 2016 Meeting
November 17th 7:30 pm, Abbey Church Hall
Derek Larkman – “Jute, Jack and Journeyings”
Lieutenant Commander Larkman served in the Royal Navy, in frigates, carriers and Polaris submarines as well as a in a variety of shore appointments. After retiring, in 1992, he went into local government, becoming East Lothian Council’s Emergency Planning Officer.
His interests include travelling, military and maritime history and building model ships.
October Meeting
October 20th. 7:30 pm, Abbey Church Hall
Dennis Cowan – “Sundials of Scotland”
Dennis was born in Edinburgh and spent his early working life in the Telecoms industry, since 1988 working at Rosyth Dockyard, the last 13 years as a Contracts Manager. He retired three years ago.
His interest in sundials started about 12 years ago. He and his wife now spend a considerable amount of time travelling around Scotland looking for ancient sundials, first recorded in a book published in 1892. Some are easy to find, others less so, but so far he has photographed almost 500 sundials in Scotland with another 100 or so in England. He is a regular contributor to the quarterly magazine of the British Sundial Society.
April Meeting 2016
Sharron McColl – ‘Louise Carnegie – the Woman behind Andrew Carnegie’
21 April 2016
Many of us in Dunfermline know quite a lot about Andrew Carnegie, but how much do we know about his wife, Louise? She was an American, who first met Carnegie when she was 23, and seven years later they married. Carnegie was then 51, and they remained together until his death thirty two years later. She must have played a very important role in the second half of his life, where he put his philanthropic ideas into practice.
Sharron McColl is a reference librarian in Dunfermline. She has lectured to the Society previously and is an expert on Louise Carnegie. In this talk she will tell us the story of her life.