I asked Barry if he would give me his permission to publish this letter and he said OK.

Dear David,

I have said before that I would not call myself a historian, but the articles I write could be interpreted as historical, but not ancient. The 'Caldwell Mystery' was prompted simply because we live in that Parish, and the Tower has always been a striking reminder of how powerful the Caldwells/Mures had been in the past.

The last male Mure died in 1978, in Bournemouth, and the two surviving sisters are married, but retain the name in their surnames; one is a 'Niven-Mure.' They live in England.

Changes in the Church? Well, few really, apart from the conversion of the manse, attached to the rear of the church in 1889, to a Hall, very much made use of ever since the C' of S. permitted churches to let their halls out for functions not necessarily connected to religious matters. We even have a veteran motor cycle club meeting there, the Boys Brigade started up recently, choir practices weekly, dancing classes etc,etc - I even ran an art group called 'Not so Much an Art Class, More of a Social Evening...' for some years, but the numbers fell away ( and I got too busy trying to write my book to run it!)

I have just been through to Edinburgh to look up the 'Managers Minutes' from 1889 - 1916 to find out all the various things that took place between these years for the last of the trilogy of which the 'Caldwell Mystery' is one. 'These records are stored at the Scottish Archive building (used to be known as Register House) in Princes Street, Edinburgh, a reference source only. 'The Manse of Caldwell' was the first article, 'The Caldwell Mystery' another and this final one will apply simply to the Church building, mainly structural changes, the arrival of electricity to replace the paraffin lamps etc.

There have been four ministers in our time, three of whom were the traditional preachers, not too evangelistic, well-chosen themes for their sermons and so on…

How well known are we? Because of my being Kirk Officer for so long, I guess I can claim to know all of the church-goers to some degree, also because of the articles I write both in the Church Magazine and the general press. In a small village like this, there is always someone needing help because of ill health, age or frailty. Sheila acts as unofficial taxi driver for several, including the 92 year-old retired minister in whose garden we have our house - part of the foreground in the photo of it is actually his garden - but it looks good! He took a stroke three weeks ago and is in the hospital where my wife was head occupational therapist for 18 years. We ( and many villagers) have been visiting him regularly and he is making slow progress.

The changes in Uplawmoor since 1963 are mainly in the people. During the recession in the eighties, some left to work elsewhere, some died, others bought homes and moved in, not all church members, but we do have some younger folk joining too.

Other articles I have tackled were about the Great Hall (1503, James IV) at Stirling Castle, the Argyll Motor Works (c1906 -1914) now restored as a shopping arcade. (The factory was the biggest in Europe - 11 acres, now a housing estate. The history of entreprenurial adventure that deseved to succeed, but didn't was published in both U.K. and New Zealand. I've also written a murder story, so awful that I can't believe I wrote it, and an autobiography 'C'Est Moi!' - after Miss Piggie of Muppet fame and who always answered her phone with these words.

Items of interest a hundred years from now? Well, the trilogy is to be put in a capsule which will be embedded somewhere in the foundations of the church, so yes, my stuff will be read a century from now. I doubt if anything else will survive unless I can get my book about the Insulin team published... It took four years and I am convinced that it would sell, but then, all authors are biased in favour of their own work, are they not?

As far as interest in my writings locally and in the Church congregation (300 members) is concerned, I sometimes wonder if some of them actually bother to read the Church magazine at all, although I once got a kind of compliment from one who said he never read the magazine until my stories started appearing! Another pointed out a spelling error in the Caldwell article.... To be honest, a few DID compliment me on the care that had gone into the research and that included the minister, but overall, I suspect that the villagers do like them.

My family? Gillian did Honours English at University and does make comment -sometimes critical, which I don't mind at all. Ewan and his wife read them but say little; Sheila is my keenest commentator. My writers club has 18 members, including a published author as Writer-in-Residence and there are critics there in plenty - sometimes very fierce, but that's what writers clubs are for. We meet weekly for 2 hours and have just launched an anthology of poems/short stories called 'Human.' It's £4:00 - about one and a half dollars to the pound, and we sold 60 copies at our book launch in a big booksellers in Glasgow.

Yours Aye

Barry