Hi MidgeHT again!
I am delighted to hear from you so quickly. Yes, indeed, James did spend time with his grandparents in Forres. Let me fill you in on that before going on to talk about the rest of your interesting post.
He was living with his grandparents James and Mary Lawrence by the time he was 5 and I should think stayed there for the rest of his schooldays, because he attended Clifton Bank School. He was extremely successful here, ending his time as a student as school captain, captain of the hockey team, and 'Dux', a term meaning the student who has the greatest allround academic ability. His talent seems to have made it difficult for him to settle on a university. He first enrolled at St Andrew's to study medicine, then left and went to Pembroke College, Cambridge, to study modern languages, before changing yet again to history. Whether he would have stayed with that choice we don't know because of course he joined up. He became Brigade Intelligence Officer, and I had a very interesting exchange about this on the Great War Forum (different website from this but equally excellent forum, with some overlap of those involved) which you might like to chase up if you're interested.
You are right that Peter and Mary had only the two children, hence my frustration in trying to trace any descendants of Patrick. Are you in Scotland? You seem to know about Fowlies as a race, as it were! I am very interested indeed to hear about the golfing books. Could you possibly scan the covers and title pages for me? I should be happy to send you my email by private message if you would like to communicate in that way.
I should be very happy indeed to work with you trying to sort out the Fowlie connection. As I said, I hit a blank wall working backwards from Peter and I do find ScotlandsPeople a difficult website to use. Also, there are special Scottish issues in tracing family links of which I have no experience and am struggling to comprehend! I have been able to trace five other families with links to members of the hockey team and we did all manage to meet briefly in June 2014. It was a really emotional moment and my hope is that eventually I can trace relations of all ten men and bring their families together. It is important to note that five of the ten died and five lived. I am tracing the lives of all ten in full, not just during WW1.
Others apart from MidgeHT, who has seen it already reading this may like to see the hockey team photograph which sparked off my research -- you never know, you may be able to help! It was taken in early spring of 1915 at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, UK. Those whose families have been traced by me are Stanlie Layard, Douglas Wimberley, Carl Davies, Norman Kelley and Tom Wilmot. The ones (apart from Fowlie) whose families I have not yet been able to find are Ivor Cochrane (the team captain), seated centre of the front row; Isaac Usher (standing in uniform at left) and Trevor Southgate (seated at right staring into space).
