Game of stones

I HAVE been following with interest all the Olympic curling from Sochi on television this week since curling was very much a part of my family life growing up.

My father was a member of the Cramond Curling Club and, on returning home after a game, would sit at the table at dinner-time and deploy the salt dishes and pepper pots to explain the highs and lows of the game.

On Tuesday, while I watched the British women score seven shots in the fifth end (a very unusual event these days), memories flooded back.

One evening after Dad had been curling, he told us how his team had been lying seven shots with the skip’s last shot to play. As my Dad was the third player, he advised the skip to “burn it”, but the skip thought better of it and went for eight … promoting one of the opposition stones and losing the match.

The highlight of my curling memories is the selfsame team winning the World Championship at Haymarket ice-rink in the season 1938-39.

Isabel Crichton

Quality Street Lane

Davidson’s Mains

Edinburgh