KYQ4: Callander Crags

Callander Crags Cairn

Monday15 July. 2024

I was due for an eye test in Callander. I have so far escaped the need to wear glasses but it is getting difficult to read the ingredients on food packaging or, in poor light, the small print of books and magazines. I was given eye drops to dilate the pupils and advised not to drive for a couple of hours. It was a warm summer's day so I decided to revisit Callander Crags.

I had last visited Callander Crags at the end of the Covid lockdown and before that, it was in the New Year race in the 1990s when I was bitterly disappointed to come second. I had reached the summit first by about 30 seconds and I was uncertain which path to take on the descent, I waited for the next runner, a local geography teacher whom I knew, and followed him down believing that I could regain the lead once we reached the level path to the finish. I thought we still had a half mile to go when he surprised me by sprinting off and reaching the finish line around a bend as I was reeling him in. My palmares would have been 25% better if I had not allowed Sir to win.

I had been advised after the drops to wear sunglasses by the optician as my pupils would be absorbing more light. It made me decide that this should be a leisurely walk as I tried to remember the path from the centre of the town to the wooded slopes of Callander Crags. It is a couple of kilometres to the summit along twisting trails through the native woodlands. Once the climbing began there was no one else on the trail. There were quite a few fallen trees and a symphony of birdsong in the woodland. The final steep stepped section reaches a splendid path that runs along the apex of the ridge to a tall cairn that was built twenty years ago. I had an apple and some water as I surveyed the views of the nearby hills - Ben Vorlich, Stuc a' Chroin, and Ben Ledi. Loch Venachar looked enticing and the morphology of Callander was a good fit with the flood plain of the river Teith.

A couple arrived with the statutory dog as I began the return along the same route. I was aware that by the time I got back to the car, which I had left at the leisure centre, my couple of hours would be up. As I walked back past McLaren High School, I noticed that there was a children's nursery in what had been the old swimming pool that I had been instrumental in closing in 1998 when the new Leisure Centre and Pool were opened. It seemed quiet so I entered and spoke to someone in the office. I explained that I had set up the Children's Service for the Council and had been active in recommending flexible community nurseries during my working days. She was the manager of the unit that catered for 90 children from 2 years upwards and after establishing my credentials she gave me a tour of the premises.

The nursery encapsulated all the elements that we had proposed in the 1980s in a Strathclyde Regional Council Pre-Five Report. These ideas were adopted by Stirling Council through the creation of a Children's Committee and the appointment of an outstanding Head of Pre-Fives in 1996 and a couple of years later the amalgamation of Children and Family Social Work and Education into the first Children's Service in the UK. The manager introduced me to some of the enthusiastic staff and I listened intently to a reprise of all the activities and facilities that we had argued for with often intransigent nursery head teachers and social work managers who were reluctant to accept the integration of pre-school services. They were now not only operational but the philosophy was being expounded by someone with a commitment and belief that was quite inspiring. This was a far better result than the winning of the Callander Crags race would ever have been.