David Stratton Watt

David Watt, the most famous contemporary painter of curling scenes, has died. Many will know of his paintings, such as The Curlers Dream (above). Framed prints of David's work have been given as prizes in major competitions.

I am indebted to Gary Cummings of Caledonian Arts and Crafts who has provided the following.

"David Stratton Watt died peacefully at his home in Muthill, Crieff on Wednesday 27th of August, 2008. David was in his 96th year.

David was one of the most prominent and highly regarded artists in Scotland, he was the Royal Caledonian Curling Club's unofficial artist. His curling scenes such as Winter's Glory, A Season's Gathering, Curling on the Tay, The Curlers Dream and his last as yet unpublished work, The Grand Match Lake of Menteith 1979, in particular have received worldwide critical acclaim and recognition.

David has a wide following at home here in Scotland as well as Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand. David was born in Perth in 1912 the son of a water bailiff. He was only interested in art at school and did not feel in any way academically inclined. After leaving school at the age of fourteen he worked in Dundee in advertising agencies doing commercial art layouts and copywriting. He attended evening classes at Art School for lettering, design, anatomy and life drawing.

At eighteen David became an apprentice in the Renaissance manner to a very good but underestimated mural artist Tom Peddie whom David greatly admired both as a man and as a painter. David was Tom's assistant for ten years.

In 1940 David joined the Royal Army Pay Corps but hated the clerical work. However when Scottish Command held a competition propaganda poster competition David won 1st and 2nd prizes for his two entries. These posters are now housed in the Imperial War Museum in London. After that David was transferred to the Royal Engineers attached to the Royal Ordinance Survey as a draughtsman.

After the war David became freelance, doing anything artistic that would earn him a living, from designing soft drink labels to cinema posters. He also carried out restoration work and designed and executed Rolls of Honour for churches in and around Perth. He was also employed as a staff artist in a departmental store in Stirling, winning a prize for his display units.

David was then appointed art master at Dall Boy's Public School at Rannoch in Perthshire in 1959 where he stayed for a number of very pleasant years making many lifelong friends along the way. He then returned to freelancing and being an itinerary art teacher for numerous Fife Primary Schools. He also conducted evening classes for older students which he found very rewarding and made many friends.

Later he moved to an old cottage in Glenisla in the Angus Glens and it was here he found inspiration in rather idyllic surroundings. It was here in the mid 1970s that he painted his first of what became his now world famous curling scenes. He started painting them as part of the natural scenes found at various lochs and ponds in and around Angus and Perthshire, and along with curling his winter sheep scenes are very highly regarded."

David's funeral service, to which all friends are invited, will be at Perth Crematorium, tomorrow (Thursday, September 4), at 12.30 pm.

Courage of a young curler

Young people never fail to surprise me - usually in the best of ways. You may not know a young curler called Allister Boyd, but he, and his family, are going through the roughest of times. You should read his story which was published in last Friday's Ayrshire Post here.

Now, check out the shirt in the photo above. It's travelling the country this week to gather the signatures of ALL Scotland's World and Olympic champion curlers. It has some names on it already - Jackie Lockhart, Rhona Martin, David Murdoch for starters. Chuck Hay's 1967 rink are being added. So too are David Smith's and Hammy McMillan's sides. When complete it will be auctioned for Allister's nominated charities, the CLIC Sargent and the Teenage Cancer Trust.

Already a bid of £500 has been received for this unique piece of kit! Can you do better? If so, contact Rhona Martin at Cairnie House - her email can be found here. Fax and telephone is here.

Of course you could just make a donation directly to the two charities mentioned above. There are multiple ways to do this.

The CLIC Sargent website is here.

The Teenage Cancer Trust funded a six bed ward for teenagers and young adults at the Beatson in Glasgow and this was opened in 2007. You can find that story here.

My best wishes to Allister and his family.

Kelso's Primetime bid aired

Did you know that twenty eight pence from every £1 lottery ticket bought by a member of the public goes to good causes? The Big Lottery Fund received 149 applications from groups around the country hoping for a share of the £3,000,000 available for the winners of BBC Scotland's Primetime programme. After assessment eighteen of these were selected. Those which made it through the selection are competing in groups of three in a public vote where viewers decide which projects should receive the funding. Tonight three groups from Ayrshire and the South of Scotland got the chance to persuade the viewing public to vote for them.

The Border Curling Development Group's project, which I described before here, was up against bids from Enable Scotland to provide support for those who have had to care for a relative for many years, and Girvan's Community Garden project.

The information in a programme like this comes at you thick and fast. The Kelso bid was well presented, and certainly the sport was shown in an excellent light! It was a case of spotting many well kent faces. Presenter Dougie Vipond even got a curling lesson! Peter Bowyer said at one point, "We believe we have a very special sport." And so say all of us.

£370,162 was the exact figure asked for. How would it be spent? The programme summarised this as the purchase of a minibus, purchase of ice preparation equipment, and free coaching provision. The Border Ice Rink's own website (here) hosts a more detailed description: 'The bid is for a grant of £370,000 over a 5 year period. The funding would be used for the improvement of health and well-being of the over 50 age group with the main expenditure being hire of ice facilities at Border Ice Rink, transport from the rural and local towns to Kelso, coaching of the target group, equipment to be used by the group, mini-bus for group use and the wider community, ice making eqiupment to cater for the group, health monitoring checks by the NHS Borders.'

I've said already that I have reservations about the whole concept of this series of programmes. Watching tonight just highlighted the difficulties I have with it. I am well aware of the work of Enable, and I have to be honest and say that their bid was the one which moved me the most. What a dilemma. Working in the sport of curling as I do, I feel the pressure on me to vote for Time to Curl. Yet my heart tells me that I should vote for Lifelong Carers. What should I do?

I have until 11.00 on Wednesday to decide. And so do you. If you want to watch the programme on iPlayer you can follow the link from here.

Democracy in action! I never had this difficulty in deciding what to do at a general election.

New season begins at Aberdeen

The ice is ready at Curl Aberdeen! These photos were taken yesterday at the city's curling facility, being used by some of the National Academy teams, those of Hannah Fleming, Alan Smith, Kerr Drummond and Claire Hamilton, under the watchful eye of RCCC Performance Development Coach Rhona Martin. Above is Neil McArthur with Rebecca Kesley and Hannah Fleming in a practice game.

Hannah delivers with sweepers Abigail Brown and Alice Spence.

The British Olympic squads were also using the rink for on-ice training. I'd tell you all they were doing but then I would have to kill you! The Vancouver Olympics are fast approaching and curling fans can be assured that the squads are putting in the effort. Performance Director Derek Brown was on the ice with Nancy Murdoch and David Hay (the team coaches) as well as some of the back up team, and all the curlers of course. It was great to see Ewan MacDonald (above), sidelined last season with a knee injury, back throwing the stone again.

Here Pete Smith (right) explains to his skip David Murdoch some of the nuances of the art of sweeping! (Other captions are available)

With the logo for next year's European Championships embedded in the ice, there will be no excuse for any of the club curlers not being aware of the big challenge looming large for the facility! Manager Tom Brewster confirms that ice bookings for the season ahead are good. The first club ice was in use last night.

Brazil in the news

One major piece of news which broke when Curling Today was off line recently was that the World Curling Federation announced the first-ever challenge from a South American member association, Brazil, to the United States of America for a place at the 2009 Ford World Men’s Curling Championship. The press release can be read here.

Canada is the host nation for the World event next year in Moncton. Brazil, a WCF member since 1998, will challenge the US for the second America's berth. The United States will host the challenge series in January 2009 at a location to be determined.

“The Brazilian challenge marks another milestone in the development of world curling,” said Les Harrison, WCF President.

“We believe we are ready,” said Eric Maleson, president of the Brazilian Ice Sports Federation. “We are confident that this will take curling in Brazil and in the Pan-American continent to a new level.”

My first reaction was, "Great - now we'll get some colour on to the ice!" But then the old cynicism kicked in. Last December I got excited when I learned that a Brazil team was entered into the first World Mixed Doubles Championship (see here). But that country failed to show for the event in Vierumaki, and as a consequence was banned from competing next season. Brazil, if it wished to enter the next World Mixed Doubles in Cortina, in April, it now cannot! (Neither in fact can Germany, Ireland, Kazakhstan and the Netherlands - the WCF sanction for entering an event and then withdrawing).

So, first question, will a Brazil team actually show for the challenge? Who are the curlers? Apparently they are five Brazilian nationals who are currently studying at the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec, Canada. They train at the Lennoxville Curling Club. No names have been released as yet!

Rick Patzke, United States Curling Association Chief Operating Officer, says, “We welcome the first-ever challenge from a South American team and look forward to hosting Brazil.”

The challenge will comprise a best-of-five series of matches, held over a three-day competition in January. Patzke says, "We are still determining where and when the challenge will be held, and how we will select our team. I hope to have this information to present to the WCF for approval within the next couple of weeks."

It will not be an easy decision for the USCA to decide who should defend their place. All the top US men's teams will be involved in January 2009 in their National Championships, and the top six then will be preparing for their Olympic Trials, in Denver, Colorado, February 21-28.

Scotland is no stranger to facing challenges for a place in the World events. Indeed, that challenge now has to be faced every year, as the European Championships double as the qualifying competition for the World Championships for European teams. This month's announcement will be seen by many as a good thing for the sport, that Canada and the USA should not have an automatic right to places in the World Championships!

Scotland's junior curlers have their own challenge to face next season (see here). Glen Muirhead's team have to play in the European Junior Challenge Competition in Taarnby, Copenhagen, early in January, to try to win one of two qualifying places for European teams for next season's World Junior Men's Championship in Vancouver.

Top: Brazilian curlers model their new uniforms for next season. I wish! Actually it is an AFP pic of Sao Clemente samba school dancers performing during the first night of the carnival parade at the Sambodrome in Rio de Janeiro, found here. Other Carnival photos are available, but most not entirely suitable to illustrate a family curling blog - as the Editor decided after hours of research!!

Search for future elite wheelchair curlers

You may well already have seen the post on the Royal Club website (here) which purports to be looking for wheelchair curlers for the GB Squad for the Vancouver 2010 Paralympic Games. You may well have been puzzled by it, as indeed I was, as the GB Squad was announced way back on May 1 (see here), and is shown above.

What British Curling, and its Wheelchair Curling Coach Tom Pendreigh, are looking for now are wheelchair curlers with the potential to be the Paralympians of the future, in 2014 and beyond.

Athletes who register their interest by the end of September will be tested at a number of events next season. The tests are based on curling figures. The wheelchair curlers will be scrutinised for directional accuracy using a plumb line and camera, and for weight control using laser time gates. The tests will be scored and the results recorded. The top fourteen ranked athletes will be considered for Podium or Development Programmes and be eligible for Scottish Institute support.

These tests and the ranking procedures are aimed at experienced players, not beginners.

The five events where the tests will take place are (1) a Scottish Wheelchair Curling Association Integrated Performance Camp, at Perth, October 3, (2) the National Pairs, October 31, at Braehead, (3) the British Open, November 28, at Kinross, (4) a SWCA Integrated Performance Camp at Braehead, January 23, 2009, and (5) the Scottish Championship in Aberdeen, March 20, 2009. Registered athletes are required to participate in at least three of the five events.

Closing date for applications is September 20, 2008.

The squad for Vancouver 2010. L-R: Jim Sellar, Rosemary Lenton, Michael McCreadie, Aileen Neilson, Tom Killin and Angie Malone. Photo by Hugh Stewart.

Full entry for Glynhill Ladies International

In the days before political correctness there was a curling sticker which said, "Blondes have more fun on fast ice." Now I have no confirmation of the veracity of the statement, but I was reminded of it this morning when I received a call from the secretary of the Liudmila Privivkova fan club to tell me that the Russian skip (pictured above) will be bringing her team again to Braehead next January for the second Glynhill Ladies International!

The news just in (here) is that the organisers of the WCT-e event, January 16-18, 2009, have achieved their target to increase the entry to 24 teams. Indeed, 16 foreign teams and 8 Scottish teams are in the draw, and there is already a waiting list.

Curling Today has already flagged up (here) that the 2008 World Champions from Canada, skipped by Jennifer Jones, will be competing at Braehead, along with World Silver Medallists, Bingyu Wang’s team from China, and World Bronze medallists from Switzerland skipped by Mirjam Ott.

In addition, the top home sides will face challenges from Moe Meguro (Japan), Shari Leibbrandt (Netherlands), Binia Feltscher-Beeli (Switzerland), Karina Toth (Austria), Linda Klimova (Czech Rebublic), Kirsty Balfour (England), Petra Tschetsch (Germany) and three Russian sides skipped by Liudmila Privivkova, Margarita Fomina and Anna Sidorova. There is a strong Swedish entry too. Anna Hasselborg brings her team back to Braehead again. Karin Rudstrom's team is from Sveg, and Cissi Ostlund (below) should also have fun if the ice is fast - she lost the final of the World Junior Championship in Ostersund in March.

The Glynhill is the only women's WCT-e event in Scotland. Put the dates in your diary! The event website is here.

Photos by Bob.