Friday, September 22, 2006

a cool story


Today was an interesting day where I learned more about the history of this building. The house was built in the 1880's by a buisness man name Alexander Geddes. I was suprised to learn that he had made a lot of money in Chicago in the meat and grain markets. He was very much impacted by the Great Chicago Fire. There is an inscription all about his potential ruin due to the fire, but was saved due to a certain chest. Anyway, during WWII the house was used by the British Forces to house a small regiment that trained locals how to fight in case they were invaded. Today, a gentleman stopped by and asked if he could look around as he had been stationed here during 1942. I asked him a bit about his time here and during the war, and he shared a bit about what he had done and seen. He fought in Sicily, Italy, Northern Africa, and was a POW in Arnham. It was very cool to be able to talk with him, and I told him that I had recently been in the British cemetary in Arnham. He told how when he was stationed here, they got to go to Huntly alot and visit the dance halls. He also mentioned that it was great there were no Yankee's up this way, so that the British soldiers got more attention from the ladies!!! Fun time!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Peter & Liz
want your email adress because we
want to contcact you for the brokaar genealogy

see:
http://home.hetnet.nl/~jcvanhaeften/brokaar

greatings
Louise van Haeften-Brokaar
Carel van Haeften

Scooters said...

this is Blairmore House and was a boarding prep school from WW2 till 1993 when it closed. It educated private boarding pupils aged 8 to 13 both boys and girls. I had many friends who went there and who had many fond memories of what was, a very friendly school. I myself taught there in 1992-93 and will never forget how upset the kids were when we had to tell them that the school wold not be reopening te following term.

Anonymous said...

I remember my first day being dropped off by my parents and wondering what school would be like.

There were some great things like the Bean and some not so great things cold showers.