The six-part BBC Scotland drama series 'Tutti Frutti' (which follows the fortunes of rock and roll band 'The Majestics') is currently being shown again on TV. Many will know that Episode Two of the series was partly filmed in the Lundin Links Hotel in the summer of 1986. The above photo shows cast members Stuart McGugan, Harriet Buchan, Maurice Roeves and Jake D'Arcy taking a break outside the front entrance of the hotel. First broadcast on 3rd March 1987, the series also starred Robbie Coltrane, Emma Thompson, Richard Wilson, Katy Murphy, Ron Donachie and Fiona Chalmers.

​​Below are a couple of stills from the second episode, 'On the Road Again', showing 'Vincent' at the hotel foyer and staircase. Alongside these stills are two promotional shots of the hotel for comparison. Note that, for the purposes of the show, the foyer was made smaller by boxing in the area to the left where the ornate pillar is. Presumably the hotel had to be made a bit less elegant to be in-keeping with band's budget.
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The images below show some of the cast in the 'lounge', off to the right of the entrance hall. This room was opposite the reception/office (see floor plan at the foot of this post). Robbie Coltrane's character famously wore a silver lurex suit in this episode - ready for the band's performance at Denbeath Miner's Welfare Institute. Incidentally, Coltrane was no stranger to the area, as his mum lived in Largoward.

The series, written by John Byrne, won six BAFTAs in 1988. In 2006, Byrne re-wrote it as a stage play. Finally, after years of music licensing issues which prevented its re-screening on television, the series is being rerun on BBC Scotland - catch it quick on iPlayer. ​Episode 1 is due to drop off iPlayer in a matter of days, although the series is also available on DVD.

Back in the Summer of 1970, a 'Grand Opening' took place of a new enterprise on Emsdorf Street in Lundin Links. The Yellow Carvel offered food and dancing in what had formerly been La Scala cinema. Named after Admiral Sir Andrew Wood's ship, the opening was reported in the East Fife Mail as follows:

"A new entertainment centre for all age groups opened last week in Lundin Links. The 'Yellow Carvel', the brainchild of Mr Ian Addison, was launched with a buffet dance on Friday. Mr Addison has converted what was the La Scala cinema into a centre which will provide entertainment ranging from the latest on the pop scene to folk singing and a village hop. It will be open Tuesday to Saturday inclusive with a different programme each evening and during the day it will be open for coffee and other refreshments."

Mr Addison felt there was a need in the community for such a venue as there was little for locals or visitors to do. Tom Clayton the former La Scala owner, who had a wealth of experience on providing entertainment locally, had been helpful during the preparation for the opening of the Yellow Carvel. The venue's original weekly programme was a discotheque two nights a week (Wednesdays and Saturdays), dancing to "Fierce" on Tuesdays, folk singing on Thursdays and a village hop on Fridays. Timings and prices are shown in the advert below.

The opening buffet dance attracted more than 200 guests. However, the 'Yellow Carvel' name continued only until 1972, when it was rebranded as 'Seaway'. Below are a range of adverts for 'Seaway' from the mid 1970s. Note the wide range of live acts that performed there. Hogmanay 1975 saw the well-known jazz musician Chris Barber perform with his band. 

Finally, the architect drawing further below, dating from 1981, shows the front of the building annotated with proposed alterations. Soon afterwards, another re-branding of the venue took place, when it became the 'Admiral's Bell'. 

Following on from the previous post about La Scala cinema, above and below is another example of the programme produced to advertise the month's film screenings. This example was one of (if not the) last ones produced, as the cinema officially closed in November 1968 when owner Thomas Clayton retired. 
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Although the 'screen went blank' in November of 1968, that was not quite the end of the story for La Scala. The local children had become accustomed to an annual treat of a free film show under the auspices of the children's gala day committee. So, on 11 January 1969, just weeks after the official closure, the children had their film showing as usual when Tom Clayton opened the cinema again for this special show. The kind gesture was much appreciated by the children of the Largo villages. As the clipping from the East Fife Mail below states, the special show was a double-bill of "The Gnome-mobile" and "The Million Dollar Collar". The following week's paper reported that a full-house of 330 children and nearly 40 adults attended.
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​La Scala cinema was a feature of Emsdorf Street in Lundin Links from 1920 until 1968. The programme shown above and below dates to the final months of the picture house, which closed in November 1968. The front cover above indicates that the cinema was open every day except Sunday at that time and that there was only one showing at 7pm. However, if it was raining, continuous screenings would begin from 6pm (as people would be looking for something to do if they couldn't be on the beach, playing sports, etc). 

Below is the centrefold and the back cover, giving full details of all the films showing from the end of July until the start of September. This included the 1966 'Batman' movie featuring Adam West and 1967's 'Barefoot in the Park' with Jane Fonda and Robert Redford. Did you see any of these films at La Scala?  If so - please add a comment.

As well as showing films, La Scala hosted a wide range of events. Some early examples from the 1920s and 1930s are shown in the newspaper clippings below. One of these clippings mentions the Motor Club Dance - one of the attendees of that event became part of a news story, dating from 2 March 1929 in the Fife Free Press. One man travelled from Dysart to La Scala by car but unknown to him, two young, daredevil Dysart lads had hitched a ride on the back of his vehicle by clinging onto the spare tyre...

"The lads had apparently intended to jump off before the car left the town, but the exhilaration of the surreptitious ride, like stolen fruits, seemed too good to miss, and so they hung on and hung on until not to hang on would have resulted, at the best, in serious injury. Thus was a pleasure trip turned into a grim and hazardous enterprise. Along the undulating Standin' Stane Road, through Windygates, past the top of Leven, up Scoonie Brae, and thence along the Leven-Largo highway sped the car at a speed which often touched fifty miles per hour. Nine miles, an icy cold wind, the wheels of the car churning up slush and snow, and the young lads clinging onto the back like leeches!"

Eventually upon arriving at Lundin Links, the driver of the car went into the dance - still unaware of the stowaways. Around ten o'clock a local lady noticed the lads sitting on the step of the car, shivering and splattered with mud. The boys told of their experience and explained that they were waiting in the hope of a ride back. The owner of the car was informed and "more in sorrow for the plight of the boys than in anger at the foolhardy thing they had done, he put them into a passing Kirkcaldy-bound bus and paid their fare home."
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In the next post - another cinema programme from the final days of La Scala.
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​The previous post looked at flax cultivation and the preparation of the harvested flax for spinning within the mill that once operated in Lower Largo (shown in the photograph above in a later guise as an oil and cake mill). Following on from 'part 1', the drawing below shows the mill first floor plan and describes the "wet" spinning process, as well as providing other contextual information. To view this in a new window as a zoom-able PDF, please click here.

Once the flax was spun, 'reeling' or 'winding' took place. This was a labour-intensive process and described below. In the census of 1851 there were several folks described as 'yarn winders' in Largo, including 81-year-old George Kidd Senior and 13-year-old Isabel Bell. There were also a few recorded as 'pirn winders', which included 10-year-old George White and 12-year-old Caroline Lindsay. After winding, the spun yarn was dried. Full details of this and more are given in the drawing below - click here for a PDF version.
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Finally, to round off this two-parter, the drawing below shows the three levels of the main mill building in relation to the water wheel and the boiler and engine. The annotations indicate that the preparation of the flax took place on the ground floor, the spinning on the first floor and the reeling in the level above that. To view this as a PDF - click here. It was quite an operation and one that brought significant employment to the villages. In a future post it might be interesting to look more closely at some of the people that worked in the mill and what happened to them when it closed.
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Below are a couple of photographs taken inside a flax spinning mill in Arbroath. To see a film of a more modern (1940s) version of the flax spinning process, click the link below....

​www.youtube.com/watch?v=nspGz6xYzvg

Below is a detailed description by John Band of flax cultivation and processing, and the history of this particular site. To open this document as a PDF please click here. Note that 'retting' (the soaking of the flax in water) was a key part of the process. An example of a 'retting pond' (a small natural or artificial body of water used for the prolonged soaking of flax straw, in order to soften the woody tissue and enable the fibres to be separated) can still be seen at Silverburn Park.

Next, the drawing below shows scale plans of the 'heckle house' building, showing the probable use of the space within it at the time of the flax spinning operation and describing the initial steps in the process. To open this drawing as a PDF, click here. 
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​Finally, for this post (a part two is to follow), the drawing below features a ground floor plan for the main mill building and outlines the next stages in the process. A PDF of this can be opened by clicking here. In the next post, the actual 'spinning' part of the process will be detailed, along with the subsequent winding and drying, as well as much more information about the buildings at that time and the industry in general.
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Following on from the previous post about the 'Forthview Grocer's Shop', a trawl through our archives has revealed a selection of vintage adverts for this particular shop. In chronological order below, we have tenant grocer Thomas Cooper, who ran the shop after the death of original proprietor Robert Alexander in 1891 until his own early death in 1898. Note the wide range of beers listed and the fact that these were "carefully bottled on the premises".
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Next is an advert from the era of Peter Scott c1910s. Note that, as in the advert above, the grocer would call round local homes to take orders and then deliver them in the mornings.  Peter Scott started business in Lower Largo in 1906, coming from Dura Den. He actually found himself bankrupt in 1912 but managed to retain the grocer shop. He married fellow shop-keeper Catherine Simpson Bell in 1913. Catherine was the daughter of the green-keeper at the Lundin Ladies Golf Club and their marriage took place within her home - the green-keeper's cottage behind the ladies golf club house.
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Peter Scott died in 1931 and Catherine applied for a renewal of the shop's license before advertising the business for sale. The advert below must date to around that time. William Gould took on the grocer's and the final advert below dates from early on during his time in charge.

On the face of it, not much has changed since the above postcard view, entitled 'West End Lower Largo', was captured in the early 1930s. However, the use of the buildings on the right has changed significantly. In the 1930s, the painted sign above the shop on the far right reads "Leven Reform Co-operative Society Ltd", while the one to the left of it states "Peter Scott" who had a grocer shop there. In the centre of the 1930s shot, with the ladies standing outside doing a spot of window shopping, was "Mrs Davie", the ladies' and children's outfitter. Today there are no shops on this stretch of the street - all have been converted into housing long ago.

The buildings on the left hand side, originally known as 'Seaview', pre-date those on the right hand side by a good couple of decades. The buildings on the right (originally named 'Forthview Place') were built in 1887. The grocer shop above, labelled "Peter Scott", was originally occupied by Robert Alexander. He had been working as a grocer in Kirkton of Largo in the shop run by James White (who died in 1878) and his family. Robert married James White's daughter Janet in 1882 and they had a son, James White Alexander, in 1884.

As part of their move to the new Lower Largo premises seen above, Robert Alexander applied for a porter and ale license for the shop (see 19 Oct 1887 notice in Fife Herald below). However, this was unanimously refused because "within two hundred yards from this shop were two public houses and a fully licensed grocer's shop" (14 Nov 1888, Fife Herald).
The neighbouring shop (that would become the Co-op) was originally a milliner's shop run by Agnes Guthrie (nee Gilchrist). She was the wife of harbour master at the time, Henry Guthrie. 
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On 5 April 1891, when the census was taken, Robert, Janet and James Alexander (aged 6) were recorded at "Forth View Place Grocer's Shop". However, the very next month Robert Alexander died. He was aged only 33 years old. By this time the grocer's shop was licensed and in October 1891, Janet Alexander applied for a transfer of the license. She retained ownership of the business and had tenant grocers run it. In 1895 the tenant was Thomas Cooper. In 1905 it was Edward Guthrie. From 1906 Peter Scott was tenant grocer.

Janet Alexander died in May 1912 and her son James became owner of the shop. James had been working as a journeyman grocer under Peter Scott for a spell but was described as a fruiterer in Kirkton of Largo just before he went off to fight in the First World War. James Alexander was never to return - dying on 3rd May 1916. His name is the first in the alphabetical list on the Largo War Memorial. Peter Scott remained at the grocer's premises until the 1930s (becoming the proprietor rather than tenant during the 1920s). Willie Gould took over the grocer's around 1932.

Following on from the demise of Largo Station, let's look at the final days of Lundin Links Station. The demolition of the station buildings at Lundin Links can be accurately dated thanks to a preserved paper trail. On 26 November 1971, the Fife County Council Master of Works acknowledged receipt of an application from Lundin Golf Club to demolish the station buildings (see below). The site of the station was adjacent to the golf course and some time after closure of the railway line, the Club purchased the disused site. 

The application appears to have been acted upon swiftly, as the note below dated 1 December states that the station buildings have been demolished and that the levelling of the site is underway. 

So after a spell of lying derelict, the station buildings were removed and the whole station site absorbed into the golf course. The location where the station buildings stood is now a course maintenance area, alongside the 17th fairway, adjacent to Links Road. For images of the station after closure but before demolition please click here and also here. Below is a photograph of the part of Links Road (once known as Station Road) where the station once was. Memories of the station or its demolition would be very welcome - please comment or get in touch through the 'contact' link.

This set of four poignant colour photographs show Largo Station mid-demolition back around 1970/71 (can anyone put a precise date on this?). Many thanks to Russell McLaren for kindly sharing these images, which were taken by his father. The family lived overlooking the station and were regular users of the train service. The photographs are taken from Station Park looking towards the sea, with the original 1857 station building in the foreground (partially demolished) and the later 1894 building on the far platform. Prior to demolition, the buildings had been stripped of valuable materials such as the roof tiles. Having closed in 1965 (the final passenger service running on 5 September) the station had sat derelict for a few years. By 1968 discussions had begun on converting the Largo Station site into a car park, with a view to reducing congestion on Main Street. This eventually came to fruition and the car park remains in use to this day. 

Below are a couple of images of Largo Station while still in use. Operational for more than a century, the station was once know for its well-kept gardens and attentive station masters - a great facility for locals and the start and end point of many a day trip and holiday. If you have memories or images of the station - please do get in touch. In the next post - details of the demolition of Lundin Links station.