In January, 2009, I took a trip to South Africa to visit an old school friend. Before I went, I did some research designed to establish who I had been in correspondence with from that part of the world. This turned up Dave who lives in Cape Town, and Robbie also from Cape Town, who has parents living in George. I managed to make contact with all these nice people, and better than that, actually met them.
I met Robbie at the airport on the outward journey, and he spent some of his time with me, showed me the City, and made me feel most welcome. He encouraged me to make certain I met with his parents Ray and Glennice. My holiday then had me making an internal flight from Cape Town to George, where I was met and taken to my friend's farm. After the holiday, we went back to George, which is when I had the chance to meet with Ray and Glennice at their lovely home. Ray asked me if I had ever seen the book called, "CAIRNCROSS - the History of a Scottish Family." I said I had heard about it over many years, but had never seen one. He very kindly produced a copy which he handed me to keep. I was so pleased. The three of us have been in regular contact ever since. What lovely people.
So, I left George for Cape Town on my journey home, but not before calling Dave, to tell him I would be at the airport in a couple of hours. Dave told me he could come to meet me, which was great. During a very pleasant time with Dave, another 2 copies of the book were given to me, which he had brought specially. So, I went from none to 3 copies of the book you see here.
Back home and having now got copies of the book, I decided it would be perfect to add it to this site. So, the work began; scanning, spellchecking, etc., to produce the Word document necessary to get to the next stage. No mean feat, producing 218 pages of text. Next task: to produce the HTML language necessary to place the book on the internet.
The book follows, and is accessible via the links at the foot of the page. I have attempted to create these links so as to allow a nice flow, especially for the first few pages, until the proper chapters begin.
Page numbers are not required to navigate around the various sections and chapters, because the links can handle that job. However, there are various footnotes and other references that refer the reader to other pages, and for that reason, I have kept the original page numbers as they appear in the original form of the book.
Ian Cairncross, January 2010.
Click here for the introduction as it appears in the original book.