Flannel foot comes to Plean or atleast the author and illustrator did!
Arlene the lovely librarian at Plean Library and her senior Jan invited me to my old school and library for a special week of events titled, Off The Page. I was thrilled. I had been taken every Tuesday night by my mum to Plean Library, late night opening, for my weekly exchange of books for the week. We all went, Geoge, Campbell and I. Now I was being invited back to my old library to do a book reading and chat. Something I could never have dreamed off!
First of all though I was headed back to my old School, East Plean Primary.
I had never been inside the new school at East Plean and was a bit surprised with the high security access arrangement, not disappointed, just didn’t realise the double buzz access had arrived in our sleepy wee village.
What a laugh I had! I showed them some old pictures to see if they could tell me some of the places in Flannel Foot a Scottish Bogeyman, base around the Plean. Now I knew some of them would be tricky but some of them had me in stitches.
Cockabendies Castle? The symbol on all their sweatshirts? The school badge? “Stirling Castle! Wallaces Monument! Edinburgh Castle!” None of the wee ones knew it was Cockabendies Castle or as it is called today Plane Castle.
The Corner? Obviously with the older images it was difficult but by the time I got to the newest image one of the wee ones said “Main street” yeah!
Old East Plean Primary? This photo they got super fast!
The Big Hoose? Eventually someone said “The Country Park” perfect!
Cory got conned into looking after Nancy Coo! You can’t have a Highland Coo running around unsupervised in the school gym hall!
The kids at East Plean Primary were fabulous fun!
As Flannel Foot the Scottish Bogeyman is written in our Plean Scots, I asked them to put up their hands if any of them spoke a second language.
Quite a few of the children did speak a second language which was great and a lot of them said French which they had been getting taught at school.
I however said, “I think you might know another language“. Then I asked them what certain parts of the body were called in Scottish!
I was rolling about the floor laughing by then! As they all shouted out
“Heid”, “Arrrrmpit” (I was going for oxter!), “Fit”, “Eurrrrr” (I was going for lug), “Burl”, “Aye”, “Naw!”, “Hoose”, “Moose”
Then we all sang a song for Nancy Coo using our Plean Scots!
Next on to the library which were there was much less singing and dancing yet we had cake! Yum!!
