John Kerr and The Atholl Experience
John Kerr was born in Euston Fire Station, London on 30 June
1932, the second of three sons of Clement Murray Kerr, a London
Fire Brigade Commander, and his wife, Mary (Mollie) Wild. He
was educated first at Westbourne House Preparatory School,
Barnstaple, then completed his education at Uppingham.
In 1984 he left salaried employment in the food business to go
freelance, when he organised and produced senior management
conferences for major food companies during the winter
months. This enabled him to extend his researches into the
history of Atholl from April to October, during which period he
also began to give a series of local history lectures entitled 'The
Atholl Experience'. By 1990 he was living permanently in
Atholl, at Old Struan.
The roots of his interest in Atholl date back to 1962 through a
chance conversation with the late Alec MacRae, local historian and
Blair Atholl garage proprietor, which stirred an existing interest
in old roads and communications. His earliest research,
confined then to holiday periods, was on the old foot roads through
the Grampians and then the military roads. In walking them,
his interest widened to include over 250 settlements and more than
100 shielings which have been researched from source material, then
photographed and plotted on OS six-inch maps. Subsequently, water
mills, churches, schools, boundaries, mountains, glens and Blair
Castle itself, have been studied to give an overall historical
coverage of the parish of Blair Atholl and Struan.
The prime source for this research was the Charter Room in Blair
Castle, where unlimited access was granted by the 10th Duke and
also to every corner of his Atholl estate. Other reference
sources include the British Library; National Library of Scotland;
Historical Search Room and West Register House, National Archives
of Scotland; Society of Antiquaries Library; the School of Scottish
Studies; Sandeman/A K Bell Library, Perth; Clan Donnachaidh Museum;
the Stewart Society Library; Atholl Country Collection; Windsor
Castle and local family papers and informants. To translate
and understand the Atholl place-name meanings, he attended evening
classes in Gaelic at the City Literary Centre in London from
1965-67 in Beginners, Intermediate and Advanced Courses.
He became a member of the Gaelic Society of Inverness in 1968,
was made an FSA (Scot) in 1974 and in 1975 delivered his first
paper to the Gaelic Society, followed by seven more.
Extensive fieldwork has resulted in a collection of nearly 5,000
slides and prints, some aerial, which cover every corner of the
parish and to quote from Alec MacRae's foreword to East by
Tilt: "John has drunk the waters of the Garry, Tilt,
Bruar, Banvie, Fender and Errochty and has been inspired to
research the whole parish"
The Atholl Experience was launched in 1984 in the Atholl Arms
Hotel, Blair Atholl and ran as a series of thrice-weekly twinscreen
slide lectures during the summer months. Twenty
lectures were produced, supported by an exhibition of 250
photographs of settlements, shielings, and boundary stones, along
with maps, plans and manuscripts of the Atholl area. The
lecture programme moved to Pitlochry in 1989, running in a similar
format until 1993.
The Atholl Experience covers the old parish of Blair Atholl and
Struan in Highland Perthshire, an area of some 500 square miles of
mountainous terrain. Tummelside forms the southern boundary,
Drumochter the western, the Inverness and Aberdeen county
boundaries, including the Tilt watershed, the northern, while
Killiecrankie marks the eastern limits.
Often accompanied by his wife, Patricia, he has, over the space
of forty years, traversed the whole area on foot to gain an
in-depth knowledge of it and thus provide a first hand historical
and topographical study of the settlements with their tenants,
rentals and personal stories, shielings, roads, tracks, watermills
of varying types, churches, schools, boundaries and every class of
people that inhabited or visited this strategic area, across more
than seven centuries, from the 12th to the 19th centuries.
The author wishes to acknowledge the assistance given by his
wife, Patricia, who transferred his longhand notes of over a
million words into computer format and subsequently printed them
out into the 42 volumes that cover the entire Atholl
Experience.
In addition to the above are also numerous copies of manuscripts
from research sources. The whole is brought to life through
the accompanying photographs which number about 3,000.
The author extends his heartfelt gratitude to Perth &
Kinross Council Archive for agreeing to house The Atholl Experience
where he hopes its availability as a local history source will
encourage others to follow on and expand the knowledge of the
history and topography of Atholl in the future.
The Atholl Experience gratefully acknowledges donations from the
following:
Awards for All; The Blair Charitable Trust; The Gannochy
Trust; The Robertson Trust; Mrs Jean Winfrey
The Atholl Experience
Registered Scottish Charity SCO33494
