Gala Day by Jack Connelly
14 May
The Gala Day, a big event in the village. Who is going to be the Queen? Well Isa Stewart was the Queen the year that I got to be a herald.Dressed up in fancy clothes and we had to wear stockings held up by a garter belt.Oh no we canny go oot like that they'll aw laugh at us.Anyhow the story goes that they wanted heralds to accompany the Queen and you had to try out in the school gymnasium by reading a script written by Mr McBean the headmaster.We had heard that if you got chosen as a herald you would be riding on a pony so there were lots of candidates.Well truth be known there was no pony so now we get the job and stuck with the fancy costume and having to belt out" Oh yez, oh yez, hear ye good people of Crosshouse we are here today to witness the crowning of our new Queen by our old Queen (Jean Freeman)" Listening to some of the comments like '' fix yer stoakins son yer seams are twisted" and where did ye get that bunnett? made us blush we couldn't get it over with quick enough, all that for a free tea and sandwiches, over all it turned out to be a good laugh in the end.The other herald was Tommy Hamilton who like me went to live in Canada.I got to meet Isa one time many years later when I came home and though I didn't know her at first when I heard her speak I knew who she was right away.I have looked at the pictures and videos of the present day gala day events and it looks like it has come a long way from when we participated back in around 1951, correct me if I am wrong any of you local historians like Robert Sweetin.
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