Collieston’s First Gala Day in 1958

Sir Douglas Ritchie (left) and Richard ‘Dick’ Donald (right), former chairman of Aberdeen Football Club, are standing in front of a stall and marquee at the first Gala Day held in July 1958. 

By the mid-1950s the pier, built in 1894, was in a sad state of repair.  Sir Douglas Ritchie, from an old Collieston family, and formerly Vice Chairman of the Port of London Authority, had retired to the family home in the village and proposed the formation of a Collieston Amenities Committee. Formed in 1957, the purpose of the committee was to attempt to raise money for the maintenance of the pier and the unique system of ‘roadies’, or paths, that ran throughout the village. 

The first Gala Day, to raise money for this important conservation task, was held in 1958.  The pier and ‘roadies’ were duly repaired and Gala Day became firmly established in the Collieston calendar as a time for socialising and merry-making while raising much-needed funds for on-going local projects.

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