What neighborhood gatherings do you recall?

In the village where we lived in Scotland we had a ceilidh at Christmas time, in the village hall, for a couple of years. A ceilidh is a social gathering, involving traditional music and dancing. In history, it was any social gathering, but nowadays there is generally music and dancing.These were brilliant. We would have a band on the stage, with a caller. The caller explains the dance to the party goers, and talks them through it until they have got the hang of it. If you have never had the opportunity to do Scottish Country dancing, I suggest you give it a go. It is fun. I don’t normally dance – I hate discos etc because I can’t dance. However, Scottish Country dancing has rules and particular steps and involves flinging your partner around as hard as possible, and the more alcohol you consume, and the more dances you do, the more bruises you will end up with at the end of the night!

We also had a couple of village fêtes – these were held in a field at the bottom of the village. All I can remember about this is that we played a game called nurdling. You get a biggish log, and lie a long stick across it. With another stick you whack the sticking up end of the stick across the log, and the person who whacks it the furthest, wins.

We also used to go out Christmas carolling every year. There were four of us who played the flute, and my uncle played guitar. We would go up and down the village every Christmas Eve for about 5 or 6 years playing and singing carols, and collecting money for our local Adult Training Centre which was for disabled people.

Apart from that, there really weren’t any gatherings. Villages these days don’t seem to have the community spirit of years gone by, which is very sad.