Going to work in St. Monans was the best thing that John ever did for there he met his soul mate for life, Jenny Morris.  From day one, Jenny and John were inseparable and it was a given that they'd marry which they did at the Auld Kirk at St. Monans.  In due time their two children, Tommy and Johnny, were born. Both these two boys were incredible.  From this remote village on the East Coast of Scotland both entered the University's halls of higher learning where both graduated with distinction and the degrees of "Doctorate" in the fields of Chemical Engineering. What parent wouldn't brag.  But bragging wasn't John's style.  John knew what was important and at all times he was a modest man.

 

After John and Jenny married, John joined his (our) father in the business which became Tom Reekie and Son to make and sell handmade golf clubs and to tutor the game of golf.  This John did for the rest of his working years  Both he and his dad had scratch handicaps and at one time John had a handicap of minus 2.  Both were members of the Professional Golfers Association.  Their pupils thought the world of both of them.

 

John was also a member of the Earlsferry Thistle Golf Club.  The way John played the game said much about him.  His drive off the tee was indeed poetry in motion.  In a perfect arc, slowly back. When his club became level at the top, hesitate, then with deliberation and in a perfect downward arc, strike the ball, then follow through till the club again became level at the end of the swing. John never forced his club. His perfectly smooth swing and his timing always sent his ball straight down the middle of the fairway like an arrow in flight. 

 

 

One thing about John, he had no love for any golfer who after making a bad shot, displayed ill temper, cursed, threw his club on the ground or made any such display of unsportsmanlike conduct.

 

In time John made a set of golf clubs especially for Jenny.  In short order Jenny mastered the game and soon their home began to fill up with silver trophies that Jenny won.  John and Jenny played the game together for all of their years together.

 

John had other pastimes.  He beautifully crafted model racing yachts that he sailed at Lochy Keary, the great pool that forms in the bay on the out going tide that's just to the east of the Ladies Tower.  These model racers were pretty big and entirely strip decked and planked.  Only the grain of the woods gave away that they weren't made from one great solid piece of wood.  From clay, obtained from the shore where the Cocklemill Burn enters the sea at the East end of Largo Bay at Ruddons Point, John made the moulds and cast the heavy lead keels for his boats.

 

John also made very fine and sea worthy canoes that I more that once used to voyage far out to sea and around the May Island.

Another of John's pastimes was the making of kites from bamboo and cloth. On windy days he flew these either over the golf course or from the beach, out over the sea, depending on the direction of the wind.  He made one kite so large that in gusts it would lift him off the ground.

He also made balsa wood gliders and model aeroplanes.  In the wintertime he made steel runnered wooden sleds for many of his friends and great was their fun racing down the snow covered hill at Black's Farm near the cliffs.

 John had a special knack and just the right touch for getting lobsters out of the rocks at low tide.  He invariably caused lobsters to swim right into his hand.  It was John who taught me how to do it and showed me the productive ledges and holes.

John loved his garden and the birds.  Each morning doves came to visit and be fed bread crumbs at his back garden door.  One blackbird in particular knew him to the point of being comfortable in entering the house and strutting around until it found him.

John was indeed a wonderful brother.  These are but a few of my remembrances of John.  He now is interred at Kilconquhar where the churchyard overlooks the peaceful loch.

 John is gone from us but not really.  I believe he lives on in all who knew him.