June 1950 School Magazine

June, 1950

Brisbane Girls' Grammar School Magazine

Brisbane Girls' Grammar Scho.ol Magazine

June, 1950

flowering fruit trees. It was here I saw a snow shower for the first time. The snow was very light and melted almost immediately it touched the ground, but it gave me the thrill of a lifetime just to watch it falling. We went from Balfron further north west to Balmaha, a tiny village nestling at the foot of a steep hill that runs down to the shore of the beautiful Loch Lomond. From here we could overlook the tree-clad islands of the loch. The one directly opposite Balmaha is Inchcailloch which is Gaelic for Women's Island from a nunnery that once stood there. The reflections on the water were superb and it is hard to believe that the same calm loch can be so treacherous in stormy weather. The drive from Balfron to Stirling comes through several picturesque villages with market squares and cobbled stone streets. Whichever way you come into Stirling, the castle on the rock commands your attention. With Stirling between the mountain country on the west and Forth estuary on the east, it can easily be understood why Bannockburn was the site of the nation's life and death struggle in 1314. So, too, why Wallace's victory was at Stirling Bridge. Centuries of history are here crowded into a few square miles, and whether we look abroad, over the hills and the windings of the Forth from the castle parapet, or whether we look up from the road below, that rock stands for something impressively self reliant and national in the best sense o f the word. We have since had a most interesting and enjoyable trip through Callander to the famous Braes of Balquhidder. . Wherever you go there is some connection with the past. The people will tell you that centuries ago so-and-so lived in this cottage and knew this countryside like the palm of his hand, or so-and-so died in this field of battle, or somebody else was imprisoned in this very room. All this and the appeal of the everchanging but ever beautiful countryside charm the sightseer and fill him with wonder. 25

The Hall of Honours is separated from the Shrine by wrought iron gates. In the beautiful bronze frieze we read the effort of the nation as a whole, and in the huge stained glass windows and the figure of St. Michael above us, we see suggested the feelings and forces of human nature which make first for war and then the trivmph of peace. We visited Queensferry and saw the famous Forth Bridge at close range . Being an Australian, my thoughts went im- mediately to the Harbour Bridge I had sailed beneath twelve weeks before . I thought of the deep blue water and the warm sun and pulled my overcoat collar up round my ears and wished the wind would stop being so icy for a while. One day we motored south to Thornhill, a village just a few miles north of Dumfries. The fields along the road were newly p loughed and the black crows and seagulls were circling above, eager to search the newly-turned earth for food . We crossed the Southern Highlands by the Dalveen Pass . Snow lay in the crevices on the tops of the highest hills. There were sheep on the slopes and from the road we looked down on the headwaters of the Clyde. It was hard to believe that the stream in this quiet pastoral scene could ever become the site for the launching of the "Queen Mary". The last week in April we visited my aunt and uncle in Balfron, which is a small v illage about twenty miles west of Stirling. My uncle is the gardener on an estate about one and a half miles from the village. The house on the estate, "Old Ballikinrain", is over six hundred years old and is supposed to have housed that colourful historical figure, Rob Roy. The drive from the main gate up to the house is through a thick wood. Daffodils lined the roadway and, in front of the house, the green was covered with them. The woods at this time are very beautiful. The chestnuts and plane trees were just a mass of bursting buds, and the fresh , young green of their leaves made a striking contrast with the dark green, weather beaten foliage of the firs and pines. The oaks and ash trees were still bare while the young larch trees made a bright green slash on the hillside among the copper-brown beeches. The hawthorn hedges which line many of the country roads here had been green since early April. During the week we spent at Old Ballikimain the weather was fine but very cold. One morning we had eleven degrees of frost, which was most unfortunate as it set back the newly

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