Ghosts at the Linn Pool

During the war, Italian and Polish soldiers were stationed in camps nearby, in the village and at Tarvit. A favourite walk was into Craighall Den, and probably an opportunity for trysts with local land girls!

One day P was walking in the Den and met a well-dress Polish lady, unsuitably shod for a muddy walk along the burn. As P is incurably polite, friendly and helpful he spoke to her - she told that her father had died recently, but all his life he had told her stories about his time in the war station in Tarvit, and walks he had taken in the Den. He had told her that he and his friends had carved their initials in the rocks at the Linn Pool, a favourite bathing place. She had come to the Den to find the carving that her father had left, but she had no more information to help her find the Pool and was beginning to despair.

P led her through the woods, knowing the least muddy route to take to save her impeccable shoes from harm. He helped her to scramble over the rocks at the Linn Pool, and showed her the two or three different places where there are carvings. At the rock closest to the water, the point from which people jumped into the pool, she knelt down and traced her finger over the letters carved into the stone. P says she had tears in her eyes, but a radiance of joy on her face.

She had found her father at the Linn Pool, and laid the ghosts to rest.