The war fallen from a former rural school have been commemorated in a new memorial.
Over the course of two World Wars, former pupils from Enzie Public School – now Clochan Community Centre (CCC) – signed up to do their duty but, ultimately, were not to return to their Banffshire homes.
Allan Fraser (middle row, third left) is joined by CCC chairwoman Christine Kennedy (front left) and other members of the community centre team at the new memorial. Picture: CCC
Now, their sacrifices have been given a permanent memorial at the centre.
CCC chairwoman Christine Kennedy said “Our last chairman was chatting to a gentleman [from Buckie] called Allan Fraser and it was agreed to get information together on those who were pupils at the old Enzie Public School who had died in the two World Wars.
“It’s taken a wee while but we’ve now got a photo up as part of the display along with one of local Land Girls.
“The memorial is mounted on the wall right as you come in the door and we’ve got a display of knitted poppies as part of the display.
“It’s vey important to have something like that in place here, hopefully people will be able to come down and learn more about their relatives who were killed.”
Mr Fraser said a past conversation helped inspire the memorial project.
He continued: “Over the past year and more I had been doing some research on the village of Clochan and immediate area.
“During this time I rekindled something that [Buckie local historian] David Fowler and I had spoken of a number of years ago, that there is no memorial of any form to those former pupils of Enzie Public School who had given of their lives in the two major conflicts .
“I put the idea to David who took the project in hand and traced the full particulars of each one who died. This done together with a firm in Elgin a suitable memorial was designed.”
Mr Fowler explained how he went about shining a spotlight on the names of the fallen.
He continued: “During my research on the local war memorials, Allan A Fraser, a former pupil at the school, gave me a list of the 31 men of the Enzie area he had collected who had fallen in World War I and World War II.
“In my research records of Buckie and district war memorial, the town had embraced names from the districts to the east, south and west of the town.
“Also, there were many other fallen not on the local war memorial in Buckie and Portgordon. In total, there was a total of 52 possible fallen names from the Banffshire Advertiser records. To verify that they were educated at Enzie Public School required an enquiry to the Local Heritage Service at Elgin Library to locate the School Rolls from 1872.
“With the assistance of Scott Reid, Local Heritage Officer and Laura Stay, Library and Information Assistant, the school roll volumes were made available at Elgin Library. It was fascinating to have these historic school volumes locally to search the pages of the beautiful written script and the large numbers attending from a’ the airts o’ the Enzie.”
The result was a hard back volume which has been presented to CCC and takes pride of place in the display.
Away from the memorial, the CCC has been busy with a variety of activities. Mrs Kennedy said a recent quiz night was a great success, with a coffee morning in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support raising £442.90 for the charity.
With the festive season not far off, tickets are now on sale for a Christmas hamper, which will be drawn on December 9 before the centre closes for its seasonal break.
Also on the horizon will be a new set of paintings for the coffee room.
Every Tuesday sees the centre host a popular pancake tea from 10am to 12 noon.
For more information about what is on offer at Clochan Community Centre, visit the facility’s Facebook page.
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