Looking for information about AKM Meiklejohn -Cor

[Guest]

I am looking for information about A. K. M. Meiklejohn -Cornton Cairns.

I would also like to know what an " 'oster" is. If you know, please pass this on to me. I think it is an overcoat or raincoat of some kind but I am not sure.

[leigh]

Hi

I have a scottish friend who refers to her

underarms as "ocsters', not sure of the spelling.

as in

"tucked under one's 'underarm' for quite some distance."

Maybe that is what they mean?

Leigh

[Guest]

Hi Leigh,

Thanks for the information. You might be interested in joining the CairnTerrierHistory Yahoo!Group. We have roughly 140 members from the US, Canada, the UK, Poland, the Netherlands and a few other countries. If you are interested send me your e-mail address and I will put you on the membership list.

Sincerely,

Sean

[Guest Guest]

Helen Miller writes:

Sorry I have not replied sooner - the publications you referred to:

Title Details: A Pentland demonstration farm (1942-47) / A.K.M.

Meiklejohn

Publisher: Edinburgh : East of Scotland College of Agriculture, 1988

Physical desc.: 44 p ; 30 cm

Subject: Agriculture - Scotland

were indeed written by my Uncle. He worked for most of his working

life with the Edinburgh College of Agriculture and travelled round

farms throughout much of Scotland advising farmers. He was

particularly interested in the farming of East Lothian.

He was a farmer's son - his father farmed near Stirling - the farm

was called Easter Cornton and this was where our Cornton affix came

from. His mother was from a very remote village in the highlands

called Diabaig and she was a native Gaelic speaker. She was the

cairn enthusiast. In the 1920s she bought a Dochfour dog and a

Harvieston bitch and they were her foundation stock for what became

the Corton strain. Meanwhile her brother also was breeding cairns

near Inverness in the highlands. She raised the dogs in the farm and

Alaisdair wrote an article for the CTC Newsletter about his menories

of his boyhood with cairns. She travelled to shows quite frequently

in the company of Mrs Campbell - I have photographs of them together

taken in the early 20s. Sadly Catherine Meiklejohn died in 1939 - I

much regret that I never met her, although I feel I knew her from

what I was told.

In 1940 Alaisdair married my aunt, my father's sister and they lived

just outside Edinburgh for the next 50 odd years until my uncle's

death in 1991. They took two dogs from his mother's stock and

continued to breed a continuous line of cairns until the mid 1980s. I

spent many years in their company - they were a second set of parents

to me, they took me to shows and taught me a lot and I was 'smitten '

with the Cairn Bug from early childhood on! From the mid 60s I went

out and 'dog sat' when they were on holiday and when they were at

further away shows. My first cairn was, naturally, one of theirs, as

was his successor. By the mid 80s as Alaisdair's health started to

fail I became more involved than ever and bred my first litter in the

late 1980s at which point I went into partnership with him in order

to be able to continue breeding under the Cornton affix. After my

Aunt's death three years ago I became the sole holder of the affix.

So there we have it - a potted history. I have many memories

particularly of the 'old' ways of doing things, feeding etc and as I

said to you still have a number of artefacts relating to the early

days as well as pictures & pedigrees going away back to the 1920s.

Helen

[bradl]

[cranky comment by moderator deleted]