This short film recalls my walk along the beautiful river Teith on early Tuesday morning of the 10th June 2014. This was on the day that I resigned from NHS Forth Valley by the funeral road to Kilmadock churchyard.
Kilmadock old church survives as a partial ruin. It was apparently a very narrow and plain church and the last worship held there was in April 1743. The congregation were described by a local worthy as with “heads iron grey and keen eyes fling upwards … their great broad bonnets round the pulpit hung”
The old manse is long since removed. Many folk of Doune and Kilmadock chose to be buried in the churchyard long after the years of worship had passed and when the old church was but a ruin battered by time and neglect.
One such incumbent is Dr Andrew Berry who died in Newton House, Doune in 1833 aged nearly 70 years, Dr Andrew Berry had spent much of his career as a doctor on the Medicinal Board in Fort St George, Madras. Dr Berry introduced to the West the root of Columbo or Colomba. He described it as “a remedy for almost every disorder”.
The quotes in this film come from several sources but by in large relate to Pip in Charles Dickens ‘Great Expectations’.
With heart as gentle for distress:
To play the film please click here or on the above image.
