WHAT'S IN A NAME?Huttonian has posted before about the great efforts we had to make to change the name of this house from the one it was given when it was sold by the Church of Scotland to what it is generally known by locally: The Old Manse-not to be confused with The Manse, the seat of the Minister in down town Hutton. We could only achieve this once the Church of Scotland abandoned its position as our Feu Superior as a result of legislation by the Scottish parliament reforming land ownership in Scotland which had barely changed since Wallace was a Scotsman (as opposed to an Australian imitator) The Feudal system lingered on in these parts and besides not being allowed to have the word 'Manse' as any part of our housename, we were prohibited from holding any kind of spiritual or religious meeting, gambling and selling alcohol which really spoiled plans for inviting wealthy Moonies around for a Grand National Week end for bets, bottles and drunken seances. Slightly more practically had we turned the house into an B and B we could have had problems in serving evening meals with wine and saying grace before dinner would have been a technical offence, one assumes. I have to confess that we have sold Pimms
chez nous for a fund raising event but for that we did get a special licence but not from the CofS.
Anyhow we are now The Old Manse. Worries that the postman might get confused have proved generally unfounded although one or two letters intended for us have arrived at the Manse Proper. But at least fewer delivery men have returned depotwards with parcels undelivered having been told in the village that no one knew of an 'Antrim House' as this building was called for 20 plus years.
Manse is not a name widely known south of the Border. Which may explain why a a few recent letters from southern folk have arrived, as this morning, despite being addressed to
'The Old Manic' It is not clear if this is meant to be a name for the building or a description of one of its occupants-I must ask the Postie what he thinks. One to
'The Mange' was surely for Rosie the Cat.
