First World War In The East Neuk Of Fife

The Scottish coastal communities of Anstruther and Cellardyke lost over 100 men (and one woman) in the First World War. The book shows that almost every facet of the conflict can be traced through their experience. The 180 pages draw upon extensive research to document what happened to all those commemorated on the memorials, and is augmented by material provided by their relatives such as letters from the trenches, postcards from POW camps and photographs of the men in uniform and in their civilian life. However the book goes far beyond personal accounts and places the local experience into the context of the war and also the nature of remembrance. The end of the war saw local disputes as to how those who died, and those who returned, should be celebrated. The fact that there are separate memorials at either end of these adjacent communities shows the strength of feeling, and division, which commemoration engendered. Buy This Book.

Anstruther East Neuk of Fife

Anstruther, East Neuk of Fife, Scotland. An old view of Anstruther.

Lower Largo

The coastal scene at Lower Largo, East Neuk of Fife, Scotland, located in Largo Bay with its sandy beach.

St Monans Parish Church

Best Scottish Tours of St Monans Parish Church. St Monans Parish Church, in The Kingdom of Fife, Scotland, dates back to 875 when St Monan, or possibly his relics, were buried here and a shrine was established to venerate his memory. The church is situated close by the shore in a most beautiful East Neuk setting.

Visit Newton of Balcormo

Visit Newton of Balcormo, East Neuk of Fife, Scotland. Tour Scotland on the Best Scottish Ancestry Tours.

Visit Arncroach Scotland

Visit Arncroach, East Neuk of Fife, Scotland. Trace your Scottish Ancestors on a small group tour of Scotland.

The Devils Footprints

The Devils Footprints by East Neuk Author, John Burnside. Once, on a winter’s night many years ago, after a heavy snow, the devil passed through the Scottish fishing town of Coldhaven, leaving a trail of dark hoofprints across the streets and roofs of the sleeping town.

Michael Gardiner has lived in Coldhaven all his life, but still feels like an outsider, a blow-in. Now living in self-imposed exile out on the point, Michael feels at one with the sea-birds and the changing light of this ancient landscape – yet more distant than ever from the dark, closed community of the villagers. But that is about to change.

When Moira Birnie decides that her abusive husband is the devil and then kills herself and her two young sons, a terrible chain of events begins. Michael’s infatuation with the fourteen-year-old Hazel takes him on a journey towards a defined fate, where he is forced to face his present and then, finally, his past. Having confronted his own demons he must return, walking in penance and penitence, to be reborn into a world where he was always a stranger.

Written with the exquisite clarity and power of a folktale, The Devil’s Footprints is the story of a man trying to come to terms with a suspended life, and the fear, guilt and unbearable grief that mark it. Revealing what lies beneath the surface of the everyday world, John Burnside has written a novel of mysterious and terrifying beauty – as primal and thrilling as cloven hooves in the snow. The Devil's Footprints.

Hellfire and Herring

Hellfire and Herring. A vivid and moving account of the author’s upbringing in the 1940s and 1950s in the little fishing village of St Monans in the East Neuk of Fife, Scotland. Rush returns decades later to rediscover his childhood, and offers a frank account of how it was for him.

This evocation of a way of life now vanished demonstrates the power of the word to bring the past timelessly to life. Rush writes of family, village characters, church and school; of folklore and fishing, the eternal power of the sea and the cycles of the seasons. With a poet’s eye he navigates the worlds of the imagination and the unknown, the archetypal problems of fathers and sons and mother love, and the inescapability of childhood influences far on into adult life. Hellfire and Herring.

Best Scottish Tours of Kellie Castle

Best Scottish Tours of Kellie Castle, East Neuk of Fife, Scotland. Just inland from the historic coastline of the East Neuk of Fife, Kellie has a long documented history dating back to the twelfth century. In 1150 Malmure, Thane of Kellie witnessed a charter for David I. The lands and original castle were held by Robert of London, an illegitimate son of William the Lion in the first half of the following century. In 1266 these were transferred to the Siwards, a Northumbrian family of ancient lineage that had aided Malcolm Canmore in his campaigns against Macbeth in the 1050s. The Siwards of Kellie chose poorly in the Wars for Scottish Independence however, siding with Edward Plantagenet and losing their Scottish lands as a result. Kellie passed to an Oliphant kinsman of the Siwards who enjoyed the diplomatic immunity afforded by being married to a daughter of the Bruce. Walter Oliphant and Elizabeth Bruce took possession of Kellie in 1360 but preferring to live on their Perthshire estates, gave it to a minor branch of the family. The Oliphants of Kellie built the oldest parts of the castle that now survive including the square fourteenth century tower on the north of the site. The 5th Lord Oliphant inherited the castle in 1593, adding the central block and the south tower. These Renaissance additions were carried out at a difficult time in the history of Scotland however. The departure of the Court for London in 1603 was a devastating blow to the Scottish economy for the Court was a great engine of patronage and consumption. Minor gentry suffered as the flow of royal posts and favours dried up and the economic recession affected farm rents and estate revenues. The Oliphants were bankrupted by spending heavily at the wrong time and had to sell the Kellie estate in 1613. It must have been little consolation to them that the castle's new owner. Sir Thomas Erskine, was host to the king himself when James VI and I made his only return visit to his homeland in 1617.

Later Erskine Earls of Kellie suffered for their loyalty to the Stewarts. Alexander was imprisoned in the Tower of London for supporting Charles II at Worcester in 1651 while the 5th Earl, also Alexander, supported Charles Edward Stewart together with a small contingent of Fife gentry in the 1745 Rebellion, receiving three years in Edinburgh Castle for his pains. Ruined by 1850, the restoration of Kellie owed much to the Lorimers, an Edinburgh family of academics who rented Kellie as a summer home between 1878 and 1948 and ultimately purchased it in that year. Best Scottish Tours of Fife.