The Reminiscences of Mr.James Crawford of Stoneyford

On the above date I interviewed Mr.James Crawford ,who was 86 years of age at his home at Tullynewbank Road,Stoneyford.He was in good humour and had an excellent memory.As a boy of 13 or 14 years of age he remembered well visiting the home of James Gordon(A son of Hugh Gordon) at the Y-Bridge road in Stoneyford.He recalled that Gordon was an aged man at that time,with a farm of land(which he brought me to in my car).He described him as a tall man with very long fingers who could play the fiddle very well.He remembered Gordon sitting on the `hob` of the fire scraping at a fiddle belly with a piece of glass and sandpaper.He said that it took him a long time to make a fiddle as he didn`t have many tools.Mr.Crawford said that Gordon charged little more than a pound for a fiddle,as money was scarce.He remembered this man making a fiddle for his niece and he said that James Gordon told him that his father had made violins and had taught him a bit about them.He showed me where Gordon`s land had been,and the Labourer`s cottage on the Y-Bridge road to which James and his wife had retired and died.He estimated that Gordon died in the late nineteen twenties,or early thirties.He also showed me a wooded area where Gordon often got a piece of sycamore for a fiddle.He said that he thought that Gordon made everything for the fiddle except the tail-piece.He told me the name of a man who had a Gordon fiddle.