Fresh Air Fortnights, What do you know about them? Options

[Patter Merchant]

I was wondering about the origins of the 'Fresh Air Fortnight' schemes that were run for people for deprived areas - does anyone know anything about them? I thought it was just a saying when someone left a door open but apparently they really were trips for the disadvantaged. Did anyone experience them? When did they start/stop?

[*Jennie McGowan*]

My mother in law remembers going on these holidays in the 1920s and 30s from Glasgow to Quarry(I don't know if that is how you spell it) Homes. They had homes in several different places, apparently they were taken over in the war by the army and never used again for holidays.

[Dave Grieve]

Dont know about fresh air fortnight but the mention of Quarriers homes reminded me of when we would get sent by St Vincent De Paul to their convent in Langbank for a week.

My brothers and I went there three or four times and it was magic, a bed of our own to sleep in three meals a day huge field to play in with the best of the lot a Maypole.

OK there was mass every morning and benediction at night, the nuns who ran the place were very strict , but hey it was a holiday.
Not many people where I lived could say they had been on holiday

[tombro]

Dave,

I went to Langbank with my older brother, sometime in the late 1950s.

I remember some of us got busted for pillow-fighting in the middle of the night !

It was a good, wee holiday, though !

Tombro

[Dave Grieve]

Dave,

I went to Langbank with my older brother, sometime in the late 1950s.

I remember some of us got busted for pillow-fighting in the middle of the night !

It was a good, wee holiday, though !

Tombro

you never know Tombro we might have been involved in the same pillow fight

[tombro]

Could be, Dave !

I went there in either 1958 or 1959.

Tombro

[Dave Grieve]

Could be, Dave !

I went there in either 1958 or 1959.

Tombro

I sure we where there both those years

[Tam C]

I sure we where there both those years

Hi Dave Grieve I was also at Langbank 58 and 59 if memory srves me right on the years remember it was a steep walk up hill from the train station also being taken out to pick brambles was there not a song we were taught about Langbank and being on holiday there .Cheers Tam C

[Dave Grieve]

Hi Tam dont remember a steep hill or special song what sticks in my mind was walking along a country lane with wonder of wonders trees on either side, cant really remember trees before that, I do remember the bramble picking though and the field we used to play in was on a bit of a hill.

[tombro]

Oh wugger !

Memories, memories and more memories (bramble picking) I've forgotten about.

Thanks for stirring them up, Dave and Tam !

Tombro

[Dave Grieve]

Ah Tam it came back to me as I was thinking about it I do remember the steep hill now, but not climbing it, the mental picture I have in mind is going back down with a long line of boys being kept in line and moving by the Nuns who would be spread out from the front to the back of the line.

Just like cowboys herding cattle