If you visited Balhousie Pitlochry care home this week, you might be forgiven for thinking their new resident was maybe a little ‘tatty’!
Introducing Stan – Balhousie Pitlochry care home’s Tattie Bogle.
The Pitlochry community have hosted a Tattie Bogle Festival this year and Balhousie Pitlochry were the last stop of the trail where the children could leave their Tattie Bogle spotting forms. So, staff at the care home in Highland Perthshire thought it was only right that they entered into the fun too, with Stan Balhousie.
The Tattie Bogle Trail followed the dressed windows of the town, and children (and grown ups!) could then go Tattie Bogle spotting, discovering their names as they went and filling in on a trail sheet. Due to covid last year, Balhousie Pitlochry ran a colouring competition with the local primary school, to give the local youngsters something to do in the tattie holidays. It was a great success, so they decided to do it again this year.
The community hub asked if the box used for the competition sheets could be used for the kids to drop off their trail sheets too in exchange for a sweetie! And it was an easy ‘yes’. A wonderful opportunity for not only community connection, but also building those vital intergenerational links too. When the staff realised they were the last stop on the trail, they kicked into challenge mode and, with only hours to spare, Stan Balhousie was created by Shona Hutchcox, Pitlochry Administrator and Activities Coordinator, Eilidh Thomson.
Judith Dingwall from the organising Pitlochry and Moulin Support Group said the Tattie Bogle Trail “was really inspired by the fact that the COP26 climate conference is happening in Glasgow. Scarecrows were never made out of new things and therefore businesses and locals could reuse packaging and products to make a fun figure.”
And Pitlochry Activities Coordinator, Eilidh Thomson said, “He has been a great hit with staff, residents, visitors, delivery folks and even people on the buses point and smile at him as they go by!” But she would also like to make clear: “No residents or slings were harmed in the Tattie Bogle making process”!
