Another book on sale this one's titled 'Annonymous In Stoney' all proceeds to charity. 

Stan Bruce and Jean Kemlo

My parents met an elderly woman 'Jean Kemlo' while on holiday and mentioned my poetry, she is 82, nearly 83 now.

My mother sent her down a copy of my book  'Bard o' Buchan Vol 1' which she enjoyed very much. She took the book along to the group at the local old folks home and started reading / reciting some of my poems, she said that usually the old folk in the group don't have much to say and the group meetings are usually a bit boring, but not this time as she recited from the book the folk came to life as each place in Buchan was mentioned they recalled their experiences and memories of the past and the whole place was buzzing for a change, she'd never seen anything like it!

Jean had written three poems and she then sent them to me to use (Wanting to be kept annonymous hence the title).

With no idea what to do with these I went through my photo collection and dug out all my photograph's of Stonehaven (Stoney as known by the locals) and put them alongside her three poems, I wrote some of my own to go with hers and researched some interesting history on Stonehaven which I then inserted.
So I then had around fifteen pages, this I then sent back to her in the post with another three pages added but left blank with the text 'Jean to add a poem here'.  A couple of weeks later the booklet returned with the three new poems, I inserted these and thought it's still a bittie slim so I did some more digging and researching and added some more pages.  I added Jean's name to the front as the author and mine as the editor and photographer. 

With 26 pages I then got fifty colour copies printed and took then down to Jean, she phoned the next day to say they were all sold, so I went down with another fifty, same thing a call the next day they're all gone.

Now Jean's been asked to recite two poems every month for the talking newspaper so I'm delighted for her and we're now going to print another two hundred copies (Paper supplied free by DNV in Aberdeen). Money raised is going to Dunnottar Church, the local Alzheimer's group and the unit Ardoe in Stonehaven hospital where the patients need 24 hour one to one care.

Quote from Jean "Stanley you've opened up a whole new scene for me, wishing you all the best, and thanking you for giving me so much of your time and inspiration, yours Jean".

Stan Bruce
26th January 2007.