Janet McPherson, Kincardineshire, Scotland
1. What is your object and how did it come to be in your possession?
I have inherited two Macpherson kilts: neither is especially old but already both have been passed down through two generations.
The first to be made was for my mother in the early 1950s. Mum and Dad enjoyed several visits to New Galloway to holiday in my grandfather’s cottage just off the main street in the Royal Burgh. Dad was inordinately proud of Mum’s McPherson heritage and equally so of his own MacIntyre ancestry.
On one such trip he decided to have a kilt made for Mum and bought a length of Hunting Macpherson tartan in Dumfries. He took it home to Manchester for an aunt, who was an experienced seamstress, to make into a kilt.
The second kilt, in Red Macpherson tartan, is a child’s kilt which was made for my brother Jonathan to wear in his role as page boy to the church “Rose Queen”. As children we lived in the former Lancashire mill town of Rochdale. Each year the churches in the town selected a girl whose good attendance at Sunday School merited acknowledgment. She had six girl attendants to carry her train and, if a willing volunteer from the Sunday School boys could be found, there was a page boy as well. On Whit Sunday there were lavish parades with banners representing all sorts of church groups, Brownies, Guides, Scouts, Mothers Union and many others. They marched from each church to the town centre for a huge outdoor service. All denominations of churches were represented but not all had a Rose Queen. I suspect that the Baptist and Methodist congregations frowned on such a dressy show!
My brother’s kilt has found its new role in recent years. And the proud wearer of that kilt was my eldest niece in the year that women were first allowed to join the Macpherson Clan March onto the field at the Eilean in Newtonmore. What a wonderful debut after four decades in the wardrobe!
2. Why have you chosen this object for the Macphersoniana project?
These kilts are my favourite objects showing my Macpherson heritage.
3. Why is this object important to you and what does it mean to you?
Both kilts have a sentimental value. They were important to my parents and as such were carefully packed away for several house moves. I would feel proud if one day my grandchildren were to wear them.
4. What does this object tell us about what it means to be a Macpherson?
The tartan of the kilts is an identity of, and shows connection to, Clan Macpherson.
Jonathan, aged six, page boy to the Rose Queen of St Edmund’s Church, Falinge, Rochdale. 
Jonathan and Jessica at the start of the Macpherson March – the first outing of the Red Macpherson kilt in over four decades. 
Proud Macphersons! Jonathan sports a borrowed Casely kilt. 
The McPhersons: from the left, Gordon Casely, Janet McPherson, Hannah, Beth, Jessica and Jonathan McPherson.
Macphersoniana 