The great-great-grandson of Carnoustie’s founding father has celebrated his 100th birthday in the locked down Angus town.
A piper’s birthday tune rang for David Lowson to mark the auspicious occasion but restrictions curtailed celebrations for the popular figure who remains active in many areas of Carnoustie life.
Mr Lowson also sent a gift to his fellow centenarian-to-be Captain Tom Moore after donating a birthday collection from his Carnoustie tea dance pals to the former soldier’s crowdfunder, which now stands at more than £28 million.
It was in 1797 that itinerant shipwright and salmon fisher Tammas Lowson left his dibble, or planting stick, stuck in the ground on the fertile Angus coast.
As the ‘dibble tree’ began to grow, Lowson put down his own roots and built a house which proved to be the foundations of the Angus burgh.
Initially derided by critics, Lowson proved them wrong with his success in working the local land and within 50 years there were more than 1,000 inhabitants.
The dibble willow still stands and even survived a 19th century lightning strike, with the town’s name being derived from the ‘craw’s noustie’ or crow’s nest of the birds which made it their home
Mr Lowson, who was made honorary president of the town’s Probus Club last year, remains immensely proud of the direct link to his forebear and has extensively researched the family history.
“I’m very proud of my great-great-grandfather who lived to the age of 92, which in those days was incredible. I seem to have inherited his genes,” he said.
David began his working life as an apprentice engineer in Dundee’s Blackness foundry, but left Tayside to study at Liverpool University before becoming a probation officer and then an assistant prison governor.
He then returned to Liverpool University to lecture in criminology, before settling back in Carnoustie following his retirement and he continues to live independently in a house on the town’s High Street, close to the original dibble tree.
His son Allan visits Carnoustie each year from his home in Canada and he and wife, Sheena, arrived in Angus prior to the Covid-19 travel restrictions coming into place.
“We were going to have a bit of a do and a buffet at the Station Hotel so it’s a bit disappointing that he won’t be able to celebrate this occasion with friends from the tea dance group and the likes of the thrift shop where he would always help out,” said Allan.
Allan, 76, added: “He was always a very keen youth hosteller and cyclist when he was younger.
“He never smoked, never drank, and isn’t on any medication. He has also always had a very positive attitude in life and believes that contributes to longevity.”
