Fred Prain

In case any of our longer-term members of the club have missed the sad news, I have to report that former club member, Fred Prain has passed away. I first met Fred long before I had any involvement with Currie and Balerno CC.  He was the chairman of the Edinburgh International Organising Committee and I was a competitor in the competition - we must be talking about the mid- to late-70s.  He was pretty good at what he did; in those far-off days, the Edinburgh International was the premier competition in Scotland (bar maybe the Scottish) and Fred was the main man.

I next came across him when Lois and I moved through to Edinburgh in the mid-80s.  By that time he had joined Corstorphine CC and that was the club that I joined when we first came through to the capital.  What I had not known at that point was his close connection to and former membership of Currie and Balerno CC.  Agnes Barr, currently out in Sydney, sends these comments 

... Fred Prain's death is announced in today's Scotsman.  He is a past-president of Currie and Balerno CC.  He and his late wife Joan were the first players in C & B to use the sliding delivery.  They used to practise in their garage using a piece of linoleum spread with Fairy Liquid - little did they suspect how this would take off...

I remember Fred as, first and foremost, a keen, keen curler. He was a passionate supporter of junior curling, witness this happy photograph taken by club vice-president, Susan Kesley of Fred presenting the Gogar Salver in 2009 to some weel-kent junior members of the club.

The late Fred Prain presents the Gogar Salver to the 2009 winners of the trophy
(from left), Jay McWilliam, Ian Copland, Struan Wood and Billy Morton

Another link with curling in its golden age is broken; Fred was a great fellow, whose eyes always twinkled - Edinburgh curling and curling generally is the poorer for his passing.

His funeral service will take place on Monday 9 January at 11.00am in the Lorimer Chapel at Warriston Crematorium.