My First Fond Memory

A Memory of Waterloo.

I would like to say my first memories of Waterloo was we lived in one of my grandmother's houses, it was called as I remember The Big White House. It was a very large house, I think it actually had 2 houses as we lived in the bottom house and my auntie and uncle lived in the top house, anyway there was plenty of space to play in as it had quite a large area of land with it. I lived there with my mother Jane, dad John (Jeck ) Stewart and my sister Catriona (Pansy) and my sister Martha (Biggy) and me Jane (Peppy). We loved the wide variety of open space to play and roam about, up the back of the house there was a field and we used to cross the field and go to the woods which was called Gelly Woods, there we would go and play and get tadpoles. Down the road from the house towards Bankfoot there was a big green field where we would go sledging in the snow but would have to watch just in case we went into the stream at the bottom. Our friends lived along the road towards Dunkeld, they were named the Franthoms I think, also there was a Polish family who lived there and we played with their kids. We also loved going up to Patterson's Farm to play too, and I remember the tattie picking and berry picking too at Randell's and also Berry Place too as it is in my head but just can't get it out. My grandmother lived in a house in Bankfoot up the hill across from the graveyard, her name was Martha Johnston. When she bought a house she would buy one where 2 families could live in them as she was herself but the other part of the house was lived in by my Uncle John and Aunt Betty and their kids who were called Tressa, John, Willie. Bankfoot was my first school that I went to, I was only 4 1/2 years old but liked it as I remember. I will never get those years back, but they will always stay with me. In those days kids could go out and play for hours at a time but now it's too much of a fast world with all sorts of people, it was a very safe environment then, and I loved it very much.

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