Looking Back: Just the thing for a wet day!

October 1964

Portsoy Church’s Enterprise

Portsoy is a pleasant little fishing town on the North East coast. With its rugged coastal scenery, its open-air swimming pool. Its sheltered Links and its bracing atmosphere, it attracts an increasing number of holiday visitors.

It has, however, one serious disadvantage as a resort. With less than 2,000 of a population it cannot support a cinema or any of the other amenities which are welcomed by visitors when the weather is unkind.

To meet this situation the Parish Church decided some years ago to open its new suite of halls during the months of July and August for the benefit of those on holiday.

Under the auspices of the Youth Club three young assistants are employed each year to staff the halls from 10am to 9pm seven days a week. Within the halls visitors find a wide variety of facilities.

A small hall, stocked with magazines, periodicals and daily newspapers becomes a reading room. Attached to this is a lending library of some 500 volumes. All of these are provided by members of the congregation.

A large hall accommodates two table tennis tables, two billiards tables and a variety of games such as draughts, dominoes, ludo, chess etc. One end of this hall serves as a small café.

To cover the cost of the assistants’ wages, tea, coffee and refreshments are on sale in the café, and occasional functions are arranged for wet evenings.

These usually take the form of a Café Chantant, with the visitors occupying card tables around the perimeter of the hall, leaving the centre floor space free for dancing. Between dances local artistes entertain with solos, instrumental music, country dancing, etc. Tea or coffee and biscuits are provided at the end of the evening.

On Sunday evening the same café atmosphere is preserved but community hymn singing and items by the Church choir form the programme.

Beginning purely as an attempt to assist the Town Council in its efforts to attract visitors, this project of the Youth Club has developed into a real service by the Church to those on holiday and has, in fact, become a seaside mission with a difference.

But it is on Sunday morning that we receive our biggest reward when many, if not most of those who have been using the halls, join us in Church. There can be few holiday resorts in Scotland where a higher proportion of visitors attend Church and more important still, they do not attend as strangers but as friends we have made during the week.

-          Robert A Montgomery