Scotland's Culture Minister Celebrates with 2008-2009 Bursary Winners at The Gothenburg Arts Hub

2008 - 2009 Burriss, Lord Novar & Sir John Ross Bursary Winners Get to Work for the Arts

Linda Fabiani, Scotland's Minister of Culture, made the third such ministerial visit to the Arts Festival in The Pans on July 23rd to review what the 2008 winners of these awards had achieved and to present the awards for 2008/ 2009. Patricia Ferguson MSP, her Labour predecessor, twice visited the town. The 2008/ 2009 Winners are pictured below with the Minister [second from right] and Julian, Baron of Dolphinstoun [centre], who announced the awards.

click to enlarge all the pictures throughout


The next 12 months sees Kelly Ross [left - Jeanette Burriss], actor, Coreen Scott [right - Lord Novar], singer, and Carole Melrose [second from left - Sir John Ross], musician, working together as a trio to honour and celebrate the town's history. All three have been active already in the Arts Festival, but these awards worth £2000 each give their winners the opportunity and funding to take their art one step further. Carole Melrose is the first ever 'two-times' winner of these awards - in 2006 for art and now in 2008/ 2009 for music.

The trio will be 'celebrating' in The Goth on a monthly basis, unveiling with considerable artistic elan Tom Ewing's Summerlee Mural, Lynn Schroder's the Belfield Sculpture and Workshops, the town's Twinning with Barga in Tuscany, and presenting a Murals and Arts Treasure Pageant at the Three Harbours 2009 and on Gothenburg Day, July 23rd, 2009. Quite an artistic workload! Their mentors will be Andrew Crummy, Convenor of the Arts Festival, and John Lindsay, Poet Laureate.




For their first three years the Bursaries were awarded to painters; in 2008 Gardener Molloy presented scuplture, Carole Melrose art, and Shona McMillan photography. Now theatre, singing and music are recipients. Such diversity absolutely signals the Arts Festival's determination to encourage all the arts in The Pans.

Authors Sharon Dabell & Roy Pugh Launch their new titles

The Goth's Centenary and the Minister's visit were also taken as the opportunity for the Arts Festival to publish its two latest titles, and the authors were present as pictured below.

Sharon Dabell has written the first of three books to appear this year under the new 'Cuthill Press' imprint, her novel A Backward Glance. Roy Pugh also has a novel appearing in September entitled The White Rose and the Thorntree, but on this day he presented a copy of Off the Wall Art in Prestonpans which includes his cycle of Three Prestonpans Witch Plays as performed each Hallowe'en.