Drumlemble School
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Drumlemble Primary School is a non-denominational school serving the villages of Machrihanish and Drumlemble and the surrounding farming community on the south side of 'The Laggan' plain,  three miles to the west of Campbeltown,  in Kintyre.

The school is housed in a modem single storey block that contains an open-plan area and a general-purpose space used by older classes.  In addition there is one classroom that is currently used by the early stage class.  The Pre-Five unit within the school is operational from 9.15-11.45am,  Monday to Friday term time.  The grounds are spacious,  attractive and well maintained and incorporate a large grassy playing field and a sizable tarmac playground.  The school looks forward to gaining further recognition for its part in the Eco-Schools Award.

1936

1950's

2006

Drumlemble Days     -     From Agnes Stewart's "A Sang At Least : The Life of William Mitchell

It was at a Fair Day concert,  about 1930,  that Willie first met Malcolm ‘Maxie’ Thomson,  who was singing at the concert.  That meeting was the beginning of another life-long friendship and the beginning of a life-long close relationship with the village of Drumlemble  -  a relationship that resulted in Willie’s most famous song,  ‘The Road to Drumlemman’,  the song lated recorded by the groups Ossian and New Moon Ensemble and by the world-renowned former Mod gold-medallist Anne Lorne Gillies.

Drumlemble was a depressed place in 1930 for the coal pit had closed in 1926 and there was very little work apart from seasonal work on the farms,  or an occasional job repairing roads.

The houses were poor and,  by today’s standards,  overcrowded.  There was no gas or electricity and the water supply came from the village pump.

But there was music and song,  there were summer days at Cragaig and The Inneans and each New Year was greeted gleefully,  with great conviviality and with the full confidence that this year,  things would surely change.

From about the mid-1930s,  Drumlemble Scottish Women's Rural Institute (S.W.R.I.),  which met regularly in the Mission Hall,  benefited from Willie’s entertaining skills.  He was a regular at the annual SWRI Burns Supper,  making speeches,  reciting poetry and singing.  He wrote a song about ‘The Rural’,  a song with a lovely line about the ladies who would ‘swing by their knees on the flying trapeze at the Rural keep fit classes’.

Some time in the early years of World War II,  James Thomson,  Maxie’s son,  started a youth club in the village.  Willie was a keen helper there,  getting involved with the football team,  with the choir and with a play about Robert Burns which was staged by the club.  When an adult choir was formed in the village,  Willie helped there,  singing enthusiastically in the tenor line while his wife,  Agnes,  sang alto whenever family commitments allowed.

Soon after the end of the war,  Willie,  along with James Thomson,  started a cycling club,  The Kintyre Wheelers Cycling Club.  This flourished for a year or two and outings included trips round Kintyre and to Gigha,  not to mention the odd week-end touring further north in Argyll.

Finances were always a problem,  despite fund-raising events like a concert in Machrihanish Village Hall,  for which Willie wrote a song to be sung by his three daughters and the club only survived for a few years.

Through many years,  Willie kept up the custom of going to Drumlemble,  to Maxie’s house,  soon after the New Year came in and many were the New Year ceilidhs held in that house.

At New Year 1951,  Willie toasted his friend in a song,  the chorus of which says "Here's a health tae ye,  Maxie,  my freen,  Your family,  your hame,  an’ your wife,  Bonnie Jean.  Lang may they sing tae ye,  comfort ye,  cling tae ye,  Joy may they bring tae ye many a year".