Scores of people brushed away the cobwebs to take a New Year walk into the past in Dunfermline.
The town’s free New Year Heritage Walk was a double celebration — the 175th anniversary of the birth of Andrew Carnegie and the 25th anniversary of the volunteer heritage guides.
It was led by Dunfermline heritage guides and among their ranks were two of the founding members — Bert McEwan and Jack Pryde.
A celebratory cake was provided, cut by chairman of the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust Bill Livingstone, Bert and Jack.
As a way of getting people in the mood, in his opening welcome, Jack encouraged everyone to get behind Dunfermline in 2011 — including the Pars in their task to regain premier football — and to set the tone, asked everyone to raise a shout of “I love Dunfermline,” which the crowd did with gusto.
The revellers mustered at the Mercat Cross in the High Street before the one-hour guided tour of the town’s heritage quarter.
For a quarter of a century the heritage guides, complete with their signature brollies, have been offering visitors free guided tours round the local sights.
Formed and administered by the trust, last year alone they conducted 681 visitors round the heritage quarter on booked and regular Sunday guided walks.
The New Year Walk has become an established feature of the civic calendar, regularly attracting over 300 walkers and as many as 450 in 2007.
This year the walk drew a crowd of 300, from as far away as New York State, East and West Yorkshire, Kent and Aberdeen.
At the end of the walk, visitors gathered at the Andrew Carnegie Birthplace Museum where they could see the new displays in the upgraded centre, which enjoyed a six-figure facelift in 2009, and sample the cake.
A spokesman for the guides said, “We are absolutely delighted. After all the snow and ice we have had recently, it was great to see the weather being kind to us.
“It is always a privilege to lead the folks around Dunfermline and re-tell the stories for the town, from Canmore to Carnegie.”
Photo courtesy of David Wardle.