Hi Steve,
I went to school at Cranloch from 1960 to 1963. It was a tiny little primary school of two rooms (certainly not an academy!) and the teacher at the time was Annie Shand who lived with her sister, Mrs Mackie, next door in the schoolhouse which still stands. Unfortunately, the school is no longer there and new houses have been built where it stood. The link someone gave shows the schoolhouse and Redbog Farm which doesn't seem to have changed much since I remember it. I remember two little girls who lived there (somewhere I have a photograph of the entire school...all 15 of us!) and , if they weren't twins, they were very close in age.
I have a vague memory of my grandfather telling me that the people who lived in Redbog (I can't remember their name) were related to the author, Jessie Kesson who wrote The White Bird Passes which relates her upbringing in Lady's Lane, off the High Street in Elgin in the 1920s. Part of the story tells of visiting her grandparents and aunt and uncles in the country....I think this is to Redbog but not 100% sure. Jessie's mother was ostracised by her father but her mother welcomed her to visit the farm. Jessie was born Jessie Grant McDonald in a workhouse in Inverness and, at age 10, was taken from her mother, a prostitute, and sent to an orphanage in Aberdeenshire.
Have since had a search and Jessie's mother was indeed from Redbog...file is too large to attach but, on Jessie's birth certificate, it states that her mother, Elizabeth McDonald, has domicile as Redbog, Lhanbryde.
Hope this helps
