Explore!

When I mention to people that I fly model planes the first thing that happens is that their eyes glaze over and the shutters come down. When I say the engine is 100cc, the wingspan is nine feet and they weigh 15 kilograms the shutters re-open pretty sharpish, usually followed by “that’s bigger than my first motorbike”. Yes, it sure is. We are certainly not talking Airfix models here but before you run for the hills, a beginner is not going to start off with these monsters. Be

In 1914 the majority of the Hearts first team, then sitting at the top of the league and favourites to win the Scottish Cup, received a white feather in the post.  “Professionals”, including footballers, were excluded from enlistment for military service in the First World War, and the feather in the post intimated that they were cowards for not volunteering to fight in the trenches. The Hearts team, along with many supporters and players from other local and amateur teams, j

Benefits cuts, austerity measures, local authority budgets stretched to the limit, households struggling to make ends meet, social unease bubbling over into demonstrations and strikes in some places.....sound familiar? The date is August 1926 and a group of protesters are gathered outside the council offices in West Calder to protest against benefits cuts – specifically the withdrawal of the subsistence food allowance paid to destitute mining families during the miners' strik

Just off the A71 through Polbeth there is a bucolic nook which seems worlds away from the hustle and bustle of the main road. In the grounds of the Limefield estate you travel back  over a century to the time when this was the residence of one of Britain’s most wealthy entrepreneurs. Now a private residence, Limefield House was built in 1805, and would be “just another mansion” had it not been acquired in 1855 by James Young, the man responsible for the development of the sha

Usually described as Scotland’s foremost mind reader, he lives in Polbeth and is in great demand all over the country as an entertainer, having made many TV and radio appearances... Drew McAdam is an entertainer whose shows include mind reading (telling total strangers what they are thinking and describing events from their past), stopping his pulse (he’s managed to freak out medical doctors with this technique) and bending spoons by gently stroking them.  I met Drew in the G

Its rooms, which once echoed to the sounds of family and socialising, began to echo to the sound of shale dumped on the advancing bings