The Laws Kingennie

A Memory of Kingennie House.

The Laws was a beautiful mansion-house in a perfect setting. The drive from the gardener's cottage (Mr Robb) up to the big house was a wonderful journey past mature trees, past the famous rock-gardens and lily pond, the "Roman" fort up on the hill, and up to the sweeping entrance.
The woods near the house were a treasure-trove of scampering rabbits, pheasants, different types of flowers and trees. The gamekeeper ( Mr McCrindle) and his black labrador used to look after the pheasants there. There was even a small herd of deer which used to roam the area. The house used to overlook a peaceful green meadow where cows grazed and moles dug burrows. The rhodedendrons near the Lily Pond were quite outstanding, and we were told that the Rock Gardens had been visited by the King and Queen when they were Duke and Duchess of York.
There was an attractive walled garden on the estate- kept locked - where there were fruit trees and vegetables grown.
I was privileged to be sent there in the early 1940s - there were many other children there from Dundee, and I still recall how well we were fed (there was strict rationing of food, clothing etc. during the war) and how well the staff looked after us, and how healthy we all became in the fresh air and beautiful surroundings.
Being children, we were ungrateful and unappreciative, and used to look wistfully towards the smoky city that was Dundee.
So many exciting things for children to do - before television, and computer games - and we never even heard the wireless (radio.) There was, on the way up to the big house, an area where a 'plane had crashed, and we boys used to scour the area, unsuccessfully searching for souvenirs. We made bows and arrows from the bamboo canes around the pond, and tried to shoot rabbits with them.
I now stay on the other side of the world, in the heat of the tropics, quite beautiful, surrounded by palm trees and secondary jungle, but I still recall the time I spent at The Laws, and when I saw the photograph of the farm and the Laws (Hills) in the distance, I recognised it immediately and it took me back to childhood.

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