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Transcription

[Page] 129
[continued from page 128]

the valves of my heart being out of order
How this had come about I cannot tell but
think it may have been due to a bad fall
I had in Caithness followed by another
when I crashed at the front door and
struck my head with great violence against
the glass panel of the inner door. After
months of restricted walking I am at last
sound, I see I omitted to note in
1950 an event of great interest in my
life. The University of Aberdeen arranged
with the Scandinavian archaeologist
a congress in Lerwick, in Shetland
in July of that year to which I was
invited and asked to deliver two
lectures, one on the Jarlshof excavations
and the other on brochs. Mary and I
took rooms in the Queens Hotel and thoroughly
enjoyed our experience. The weather
was exceptionally fine and we had only
one wet day in the 12 days we were on
Shetland. There were archaeologists from
Norway & Sweden, England and several
Scots; some forty altogether. My lectures
were early in the programme and I
had excellent audiences. We went

various excursions and made a number
of friends. As usual I gave my lectures
without reading, but had numerous lan:
:tern illustrations, which are as good as any notes.
I retired last year from the Anc. Mons. Com [Ancient Monuments Commission]
as I could no longer attend the meetings also
for the same reason I was able to retire from
the Holyrood Trust, which I have served on
since its inception some 20 years ago. In
fact I no longer serve on any public body
In my day I was first Secretary then a member
of the Royal Commission on Anc. [Ancient] Monuments,
the Ancient Monuments Board, concerned
with the preservation of Anc. Mons. [Ancient Monuments] the council
of the Soc. [Society] of Antiquaries of Scotland; the
executive Committee of the National Trust,
the Com. [Committee] of the College of Art, and for some
time its Chairman, the Scottish Rock Garden
Club and at one time its chairman: Dir:
:ector of the Mus. [Museum] of Antiquities also of the
Royal Scottish Museum. This
last summer Mary and I spent a
delightful holiday at Melrose where
Christian Pitman invited us to stay at
St. Cuthberts and to continue there when
she went abroad which we did. It was on
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