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1930's At the front door of Bandirran House
Monty on the far right, next is Commander Heathcote of The Den
Earlsferry,
center is Stanley Norrie-Miller of Perth. Two Cripps brothers on the
left.
Gerard Alexander
Moncrieff (Monty) who was born on the 23rd. of August 1878 and who I often caddied for
was the second son of Sir Alexander Moncrieff of Culfargie in
Perthshire. He was educated at Winchester, Eton and Cambridge. He
told me that after he completed his education his father, Sir
Alexander, loaned him
two thousand pounds which he was to pay back as soon as possible.
This he said he did in nine months. Monty had two sisters, four
brothers ( Maud, Gladys, Malcolm, Alaric, Roger, Duncan ) several nephews and lady friends but he
never married. The Moncrieff family home was the mansion house on the Estate of Bandirran near the village of Balbeggie. Monty was
more than just a man I caddied for. Monty was a very good friend of
our family and I admired the man. Like wise he took an interest in
me and in time he became my very good friend and mentor. Often
on
his walks around the village of Earlsferry he would drop by our house and spend an
hour or so while he joined us for a cup of tea. He was two years
older than my father and was a man who had a smile and a welcome for everyone.

1942 Seaforth, Elie. Monty at 64. I'm 16.
This
beautiful soft suede leather coat with black astrakhan collar and cuffs is exquisitely
adorned with gold embroidery and is fashioned from
the hides of Tibetan Yak, fur side in. The coat was gifted to Monty by the
Dalai Lama at his palace at Lhasa in Tibet. Monty was one of very
few Westerners who had ever been invited to visit and stay at the
palace, high in the Himalayan mountains. This photo
was taken and developed by my brother Noel using his home made, cigar box,
cut film camera. The cigar box had contained Havana Corona cigars
that were sent anonymously to Monty on a regular basis from someone
in Cuba. One of Monty's projects had been the building of a
railroad in Cuba to transport sugar cane and tobacco leaf from the Cuban outback to
warehouses that Monty had built in Havana. (United
Railways of the Havana and Regla Warehouses) Another interesting
anonymous present that was sent to Monty every year from someone in China was a
two foot cube size box of Chinese tea.
In the world of
merchant banking and world wide corporate finance, Monty was a man
of great accomplishment. He was on the board of numerous world wide corporations and his endeavors, which
stretched from GAFLAC in Perth, Scotland to sheep estates in Perth, Australia (Australian Estates), took him to the far reaches
of the globe. He maintained an office and staff at 56
Gresham Street, London EC2 which
is the heart of London's financial district. He conducted his business by daily telephone instructions from his
Elie home, Seaforth, that overlooks the harbour. An Edinburgh Law
firm carried out his legal work. Monty's daily morning routine was to read the
Financial Times and The Scotsman newspapers. From these he got
information for his next game play in the market. His modus operandi
was to
search for the best known corporate name in the most depressed
and ailing industry. He and his friends then bought shares on the open market until
they had the controlling interest in the company. After this was
accomplished they went on site with a team of analysts and
specialists to determine what it would take to bring the company
back to profitability and to be the leader of the industry such that
others who at a later time would buy in would know that they had
made a wise investment. Usually it meant new management and a
huge infusion of new money which Monty and his friends could round up. After he had transacted his business for the
morning Monty did The
Scotsman's crossword puzzle.
Monty was the most modest and humble man that I have ever
known. He did his best to convince me to join his business and go to his London office to
learn what went on there and I made one trip with him to London. To
transition from Earlsferry to London was just more than I was
prepared for so I had to say, No. My future lay elsewhere.
I don’t know
what Monty did to acquire it but he had the green uniform and
regalia and held the ancient title of Royal
Scottish Archer which gave him the right and the expectation to be in the presence of any of the
Royal family whenever they should be in Scotland.
Monty was a
practical man. He knew that I was mechanically inclined and he gave
me my first lessons in mechanics. He taught me how to drive and take
care of his car (first a Daimler then a Rover) including religiously doing periodic oil changes.
Now at 83 years of age I still religiously change my own oil and
maintain my vehicles and mechanical devices that in past
years have included boats and airplanes to the extent that I never
have had a mechanical breakdown of any kind nor the need to employ
the services of a commercial mechanic.
The Moncrieff
family home of Bandirran House when I began to know it in the 30’s
was fully and lavishly furnished but it had not been lived in on a regular basis
since 1920. At that time the 1911 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost Cabriolet
with but 20,000 miles on the clock was put up on blocks and there it
remained for 20 years until the Military, including a detachment of
Polish soldiers, occupied the mansion house during the years of World
War II. However, while up on blocks this great old car wasn’t
neglected. It's engine was run once a week and it’s oil was changed on a
regular schedule for all of these years. What a wonderful machine it
was for it’s day. It left the Rolls-Royce factory at Derby in
England in June of 1911.
During that particular month Rolls-Royce produced only two cars.
Rolls-Royce made only the engine, the running gear and the chassis. The coach building
firm of Hooper and Hooper in London made the body. Prior to the
occupancy of Bandirran House by the military for the years of World
War II the contents of the house were removed to Perth for storage
and the Rolls-Royce was taken to Dunfermline in Fife for the duration of the
war. (It was later acquired by David Wemyss of Wemyss who had a July
1911 sister model.)
The Estate of
Bandirran as I knew it comprised many square miles and encompassed terrain of
every description from sheltered fertile farmlands to timbered hillsides and
wild heather covered moors.
The high walled garden produced an
abundance of every kind of vegetable. Bandirran strawberries and
black currants were
out of this world. Espaliered on the walls were many varieties of apples, pears
and plums. It was the gardeners job to take care of the bee hives in
the garden but Monty and I both liked to work with the bees so the gardener
indulged us by letting us help. The hives produced several hundred pounds of comb honey.
Starting in May the
hives were moved from the garden to the clover fields, to the lime
trees, to the epilobium (fireweed) and the wild flowers in the woods to finally,
in late July, ending up high on the heather covered moors. Dark heather
honey was my favorite. The greenhouse in the garden furnished tomatoes and grapes.
People who live on estates
while they may not make a lot of money actually live quite well.
Most all have gardens that provide for their needs for vegetables,
berries and fruits and estate people know how to live off the land.
Local farms provide farm crops on a low cost basis. I don't know how
it is today in Scotland but in my early days most every man who
lived in the country had one or more shotguns and knew how to use it
to provide for the needs of family and in many cases also to provide
for others who weren't gun oriented. The country had a prolific
supply of very good rabbits that made for an an excellent source of low
cost meat. Monty taught me gun safety and gave me my first shotgun
that was a BSA single shot .410 with which I became quite
proficient. Years later he gave me a beautifully hand engraved 16
gauge double barrel that was made in France then later a very nice
Belgian made 12 gauge side by side double barrel. He also had a
beautiful matched pair of 12 gauge Holland and Holland's that were
a delight to carry and use. Monty also gave
similar guns to Noel my brother and the three of us had many great
days as with game bags on our shoulders we walked the fields, the
woods and the moors. There were other times that Monty invited
groups of his friends to come for a day's shooting. What great days
these were. On these days Noel and I elected to be beaters as
we had the run of the estate at all other times. When a big
shoot was held and lunch time was called and blankets were spread on
the ground and goodies of every kind appeared these events did
indeed make for memorable and unforgettable times of joie de vivre.
One day I had been out
shooting in the fields to the south of the cottage. As I walked I
spotted a large bull coming at me at a gallop. There was one tree
nearby that had low hanging branches which I hastily climbed up
into. Before doing so I propped the 12 gauge shot gun that I was
carrying against the tree. Both barrels were loaded and cocked ready
to fire. In my haste I had neglected to put the gun on
"safe". As the bull snorted and stamped its hooves at the
foot of the tree I could see that the barrels were pointing straight
at me. The bull spotted the gun and licked it which caused it to
fall over. Some one was looking after me that day as had the gun
fired I would have received it's full blast. Another
day I returned to this place and found a single cylinder head that
had come off an airplane's radial engine. I surmised
that the airplane that had shed it was of American manufacture as
the precision machined overhead valve cylinder head had Hoover
roller bearing activated tappets which to me, was a very advanced
design.
Several times in the 30's
Monty took me to the small church that he occasionally went to that
was but a few miles from Bandirran. I've forgotten
it's name and just where it was or is located and if anyone who reads this recognizes
which one it was I'd very much like to hear from you. The only way I
can describe the church is that, beside others, it had two very beautiful stained
glass windows that were alongside of the Moncrieff pew. One
window depicted Jesus knocking on a door as he
held a lantern and had the wording, " Behold I stand
at the door and knock." The other window had Jesus the
sheperd with his flock of sheep and the
wording, " Lo, I am with you alway even unto the end of the
world."
In one of
Bandirran's woods, near a pond we called the Curling Pond, for the
reason that it was always the first on the estate to freeze, is an ancient Druid Stone Circle and close by that is
Dunsinane Hill that Shakespeare tells of in his play Macbeth.
Imagine walking amid a Druid stone circle and thinking of
the rituals that went on in this place by the ancients that
inhabited the region, then scrambling to the top of Dunsinane Hill
and tracing the outline of where Macbeth's castle
had
stood, then
looking to the north-west to Dunkeld and Birnam Woods in the
distance and thinking of the battle at which Siward, MacDuff
or Malcolm Canmore slew Macbeth
and Malcolm was proclaimed the new King of Scotland. With all of
this your home is in the village of Earlsferry and your playground is
MacDuff's cave at the Earlsferry cliffs where MacDuff sheltered as he was
waiting for a boat to take him to the other side of the Firth of
Forth to evade his pursuers. Such were the places of my
childhood.
One day
in what must have been April or May I filled
a back pack with supplies for a possible over night campout and hiked
for several miles to the southeast of Bandirran House and up on to the
high heather covered moors until I had almost come to Kinnaird
Castle and the valley of the River Tay. ( In late August and
September when the wind is calm and
the sun is shining it's a wonderful sight to see coveys
of grouse as when startled they skim low over the
curves of the high moorlands. At that time of year it's a very
special experience to see and smell the heather when it's in full bloom and to hear the whirring of the wings of the
grouse
when in rapid succession they call to each other, go-back, go-back, go-back.,
go-back. ) On that spring day afternoon as I was thinking of turning
around to head back I was approached by a girl of about my own age, the only person I'd seen all day. She just
appeared from nowhere. She came towards me and looked me
straight in the eye. Without the glimmer of a smile she was the
first to speak and in a very English and authoritative voice she asked, “Ah you away
that you ah on Fingaaask ?" It was obvious that she
was oblivious as to the difference between Scottish and English law
as to a walkers right of passageway over land. I think she thought I was a
poacher so I responded in my best Scottish brogue, “No, but I think
you may be on Bandirrrrrrran---not that it matters." We both let down our guards as
laughter prevailed and the ice
was broken. (People who are natives of the land to the south of
Scotland draw out the letter "a" and don't burr the
letter "R" like a person from further to the north does.) She said that once a year in the spring she came north to visit her
relatives at Fingask. The purpose of her visit was to see her
special place high in the heather hills that was a moorland marsh.
In the springtime her marsh was home to hundreds of black headed gulls, ducks and snipe.
She volunteered, ”I’ll show it to you but you must tell no one that
you know of it." I promised not to tell. When we got to her place we
took off our shoes and waded amongst the nesting birds. What an
experience that was. I was sorry when she had to leave and head homewards.
I later found out that where we met I was on Fingask---not that it
mattered. One other day near this place that I called the seagull
pond, I found a shattered wooden propeller that must have come off a
Tiger Moth trainer. Nearby on the ground was all the evidence of a
crash site but no sign of the airplane which no doubt had been
carted away. Not very far away was Scone airport which at that time
was in use as a wartime training airfield.
My brother Noel
and I were very fortunate in that Monty took us along with him on
day and sometimes week long trips where we camped out in the
spotlessly clean but unoccupied old mansion house. (in the years
before the gardeners cottage was added on to) While there we
hiked over the hills and the moors and hunted and fished to our heart’s
content. What glorious days these were. Monty told Noel and I to
come to Bandirran and to use the house and the estate just like we
owned the place, any time we wanted to, even when he wasn’t there
which we did on many occasions. The estate of Bandirran
abounds in a
wealth of game animals, rabbits, hare and some deer, game
birds such as wood pigeons, partridge, pheasant, woodcock, blackcock,
grouse, mallard and other ducks, snipe, geese and a few capercaillie. In the winter time when the snow was on the ground, great
flocks of geese descended on to the harvested stubble fields.
Sometimes late summer winds and rains flattened the grain in the
fields to make it difficult to harvest. When this happened it was
just left for the geese to feed on. At other times the farmers of the fields
just left several acres unharvested for the geese. In such fields I used to make
a blind out of corn stooks in which I would conceal myself just as it was
beginning to get dark when the geese would descend in their hundreds
to within inches of me. The pond by the gardener’s cottage and the
two hillside burns that fed it was home to numerous speckled brook trout. Unlike the
burns that were great places to dangle a worm in the deeper of the pools, the pond
by the house was a great place to fly fish. My fly of choice was a
Malloch tied Greenwell's Glory in an either wet or dry fly pattern. In the winter time the
pond would freeze over with clear black ice and it was a great place to skate. There were
occasions when we put Aladdin lamps out on to the frozen pond and
we skated till
almost midnight.

Added-on-to gardener's cottage.
My
brother John designed and built the lapstrake copper rivet and rove
fastened boat from Bandirran lumber. I was John's helper to buck the
rivets.
Monty
and I both laid some of the masonry that surrounds the two windows
of the lower level
living room.
As Bandirran mansion
house was way too big to be kept staffed for only the occasional
visitor, Monty got the great idea of adding on a living room and
bedroom extension wing to the gardener’s home by the pond. This was
highly successful. Part of the original gardener’s cottage house was
combined with the new addition which became the dining room and an
upstairs bedroom. The overall result was that instead of being only
the gardeners cottage there were now two separate but connected
homes. All of
the downstairs addition became a great south facing living room that
overlooked the pond. The upstairs, over the new addition, became two new bedrooms and a
bathroom to give the addition three in all bedrooms upstairs. The
cottage had no electricity but what a snug, cozy house it was when
Aladdin mantle lamps and a big flickering wood fire were lit in the
evenings and the rooks and the knights were set up on the chess
board. At the time of the make-over Monty had the kitchen of the
gardener and his wife’s part of the original house completely remodeled and a wonderful
new AGA heating and cooking stove was added. The gardener became the caretaker of all
and his wife became Monty’s cook and housekeeper. It was a great
arrangement.

1937
Yews made an arched focal viewpoint in Bandirran's garden.
I
took this photo with a very old but still functional Kodak bellows
camera.
Shortly after
the remodel of the cottage the pond to the front that over the years had
become silted up was drained and dredged. In a way I was sorry
to see this happen. The material that silted up the pond was mostly
leaf material that over the years had washed down the burn. By
slightly agitating the ooze layer I successfully collected marsh gas
(methane) that I did manage to ignite. I had visions that with
sufficient ingenuity the entire house could have been lit and maybe even
heated by the collected fuel. To prevent future silting we
decided that a bypass burn could be created by the making of a burn
diverting sluice gate that would be operated when at times of heavy
water flow the burn ran full. The engineering of
the bypass sluice and the diversion of the burn became my project. My
method of finding the new watercourse of the bypass was to go
upstream where, with a stick, I made a scratch on the ground alongside of the
flowing water. The bypass watercourse would have to flow
through the woods that were above the level of the pond so it was
essential to maintain as much elevation for the new bypass burn as
possible. If a lot of water flowed into my scratch
then my scratch was heading too much downhill and if no water flowed into my
scratch then my scratch was going too much uphill. A primitive
method but highly functional, even better than using an expensive
theodolite transit level. While the pond was drained I also oversaw the
installation of the new draw-down pipe line, the "Ismailia"
(no hinge pin) drain valve and the connecting chain to the lever operated
valve opening mechanism. I got the honor of closing the valve to fill the
pond.
My brother Noel
and I treasured Monty’s companionship and it was obvious that Monty
valued our youthful exuberance for his Bandirran property.
Bandirran House comprised three stories above ground level and one
complete basement level, which when the house was occupied was the
domain of the household staff.
There were
several things that intrigued me about Bandirran House. On the
second floor above ground level if you counted the windows of the
house on the outside then went inside to do the same thing there was
one less window on the inside. A part of the house was sealed off such that
it’s existence was undetectable.
Below ground in
the basement, near the south-east corner of the house and also
completely undetectable was what looked like a cupboard door. Far
from being a cupboard door Monty showed us that it was the secret
entrance to an escape tunnel that exited some hundred or more yards away
in a tree and brush covered dell. At the dell the exit of the tunnel
was completely camouflaged such that it’s existence was
undetectable. The tunnel shaft was about five feet high and three
feet wide and was completely constructed of heavy stone. The roof
was arched and the floor was V shaped such that the center provided
a drainage channel for seeping ground water. Twice in my years of
visiting Bandirran I traversed the tunnel from the house to the
dell. Spaced along the tunnel were two ventilating shafts to the
surface that let in a tiny amount of light. To traverse the length of
the tunnel was quite an experience.
Bandirran House
had the legend of a ghostly visitation. As Monty told it to me, each
time one of the Moncrieffs died, a hearse with a team of horses was
heard to clomp and clatter up the curving driveway to the front door of the
house, stop for a period of time then turn around and drive away
till all was again quiet. Supposedly this phenomenon had happened
each time after a member of the Moncrieff family had died.
In Monty’s later
years he suffered several mild heart attacks, twice at Bandirran
when I was with him, for which he
carried pain killing nitro-glycerin tablets or as he called them his
dynamite pills. During the last three years of his life his doctors
advised him to spend his winters in a warm sunny climate. His place
of choice was the Portuguese island of Madeira where he lived in the Reid Hotel
in the town of Funchal. While there he kept in touch by infrequent
postcards except for the last year. Since I had not heard from him
for several months I went to his Elie home, Seaforth, to ask his two
house keeper sisters if they had heard from him. When they answered my
knock on the door it was obvious that they had been crying.
Without a word being spoken a telegram was handed to me to
read. Monty had died.
The next day
after learning this awful news an overpowering force compelled
me to go to
Bandirran. Knowing where a key to the house was hidden I entered
the big house then locked myself in. The silence was total. I went into
the oak lined library which was a large room. The oak paneled ceiling
was completely covered with carved Moncrieff coats of arms that traced the
lineage of the family over the centuries. As I stood there in my grief
as to the loss of my friend my hair raised up as I heard the rumble
of wheels and noises on the driveway.
The sounds came nearer then stopped. I heard voices and a rattling of the
front door. The empty house echoed. Others had arrived for some reason. For what,-- the
stone of destiny ? The
big house had stood empty since the military vacated at the end of
World War II. I felt an oppressive weight
descending on me. I fled to the basement to where was the entrance
to the escape tunnel. By now I was in a cold sweat and my heart was thumping. I
opened the entrance door to the tunnel, climbed into it, ducked my
head and made a mad scramble for the other end. The exit was
completely covered over in brush and thorny bramble vines. I pushed my way
through and got thoroughly bloodied up in the process. In a blind
panic I fled through the trees and the heavy brush. I came to a
clearing in the woods where there was a downed log that I sat on to get my breath
back. As I looked up at the puffy white clouds in the blue sky I was
looking at the trunk of a tree on which was nailed a wooden
crucifix. In that moment I was transfixed. As I gazed in
amazement at the cross,
the weight that was pressing on me lifted and a voice seemed to say,
“Dry your tears, I’m all right.” It was like Monty had
returned from his
"island valley of Avilion
where
falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
nor
ever wind blows loudly;
but it lies
deep-meadowed
happy,
fair with orchard lawns and bowery hollows
crowned
with summer seas."
.
The
foliage of the
place that I stopped at showed no sign that anyone had visited
the place in years yet the wood that comprised the cross was
unweathered and looked recent. How did that crucifix come to be nailed up on that tree ? Could
Monty have put it there before he left ? Why did I find it at this time ? To this day I still wonder.
A few years
later I made one of
my compelled-to-return visits to Earlsferry. In short time I went to
Bandirran to once more wander it’s hills, retrace my steps and
live in the past as I remembered my dear friend and the happy times that I'd spent there
with him.
When I got to
Bandirran the Moncrieff mansion house was no longer there. Vanished.

Bandirran Mansion ~ Gone but not forgotten
The square inset above the library
windows was the Moncrieff coat of arms.
I never heard how Monty died.
I know "he" came home but I
never learned as to whether his body ever did.
I'll always remember
him as my very special friend.
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