How Stonehaven hero Barbara Maclean has raised over £1m for charity
She would never have imagined that day would see her on the road to opening a charity shop in Stonehaven which 30 years later, would have donated more than £1million to projects worldwide.
Barbara is originally from Greenock but she and her husband Alistair settled in Stonehaven in 1981.
For several years, Barbara was busy bringing up her two sons, Scott now 44, and Sandy, now 42.
Her moment at the festival in Ayr came in 1992, when Barbara, a devout Christian, heard a speaker calling people to mission.
This prompted her to seek spiritual guidance on how to support missionaries, but the direction she would take didn't fall into place at once.
It was bubbling in her mind though on a holiday weekend with the boys in the North Yorkshire town of Yarm.
Barbara said: 'I noticed how many charity shops there were, for various causes.
'I felt a prompting from God who said, what if there was a charity shop for mission?
'Next thing I was in the charity shop looking at the prices with interest.
'And I'd always hated charity shops!'
She mentioned her thought to her husband Alistair, returned to Stonehaven and promptly forgot about it.
But Alistair didn't forget.
He nudged and nudged Barbara until she shyly mentioned the idea to their minister Graham Finch at Stonehaven Fetteresso Church.
After much discussion and debate, a committee was formed to move the idea forward.
In 1993, the Far & Wide charity shop opened in its first location in Stonehaven.
'People thought it would only last a year,' Barbara said. 'I thought once people had emptied their attics that would be it. But the stuff kept coming.'
Five years later the shop had outgrown its original location and moved into its current location on the corner of Church Street.
As the money for good causes rolled in, Barbara found churches of other denominations asking for money.
'Volunteers signed up from the Baptist church, the Catholic church and the Episcopal church — people who had a real passion for this work.
'That's how the Fetteresso Charity committee was formed.'
Today, 40 volunteers work on rotation to keep the shop running.
They transport and sort donations, return items to the shop, manage displays, work the till and steam the clothes.
Barbara said: 'Some of the ladies have been involved for more than twenty years.
'It's hard work, quite physical.'
Barbara now has a paid role to carry out for 20 hours of vital admin for the charity, but in practice, she puts in many more hours for the shop, its food bank and its community cafe.
She's even witnessed modern day miracles in the shop, as items have been donated that exactly suit the requirements of needy families.
She recalls: 'One day, a social worker called with a request.
'A family she had been working with was about to move into a new — and completely empty — flat.
'The social worker said that the family could use a three-piece suite in brown leather.'
Barbara knew that the shop mostly dealt with clothing, books, and other small items.
'I thought, that's specific but, well, you never know.'
Moments later a van from partner organisation Blythswood Care arrived, and the back doors opened to reveal —a three piece brown leather suite.
The social worker also mentioned the same family needed a carpet, and the van returned with —a roll of carpet.
Barbara said: 'When they arrived at the flat, the family asked if they could help fit the carpet, something they'd never done.
'It turned out the carpet was a perfect fit for the living room.
'Sometimes you just have to say it out loud, and then you never know.'
The money raised by Far & Wide now supports many projects worldwide.
After the war in Bosnia, the charity provided funds to help refugees move out of railway carriages and build their own houses.
Soon after, additional funds were sent to purchase a polytunnel for growing vegetables to support the village.
Far & Wide also played a key role in establishing a bakery and a sewing machine workshop.
The charity shop has contributed to the construction of a new clinic in Rwanda, purchased tools for a fish farm in Cameroon, funded cleft palate operations on the Mercy Hospital Ship, and provided resources for eye operations for refugees along the Burmese border.
It has supported feeding programmes for orphans in Africa and for teenagers living on the streets in Siberia, where temperatures can drop to minus 40 degrees.
They've funded solar panels in Africa, smoke hoods in Nepal and helped send and pack a 20ft container of aid to Lake Victoria.
These are just a few examples of the work of Far & Wide, making Barbara not just a local hero, but an international one too.
But for Barbara, it's all about the volunteers.
A fellow member of Stonehaven Fetteresso church said: 'She helps everyone and is so humble.
'The volunteers are great it's true, but Barbara is amazing, a true Stonehaven hero.'
If you enjoyed this story, you may also like:
Bridge of Don family celebrate Dons fan Fraser Duncan's kindness award for helping his grandad
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Spectator
11 hours ago
- Spectator
Does Canopus have a connection with canopy?
I spent some time looking for the connection between the ancient city of Canopus and the English canopy. Nelson won the Battle of the Nile in Aboukir Bay. The bay was named after the city of Abu Qir, which was named after a Christian martyr, St Cyrus. Abu Qir stands on the site of the city of Canopus, to which ran the Canopic Way, from Alexandria. Canopus was said to have been founded by Menelaus, the King of Sparta who figures in the Iliad. Canopus, the pilot of his ship, was fatally bitten by a snake, and around the monument built by Menelaus grew the city. At Canopus, the Egyptian god Osiris was worshipped under the form of a jar with a human head. Modern antiquaries gave the name Canopic jars to other such jars with quite a different purpose: to hold the entrails of mummified bodies. The helmsman Canopus was also remembered in ancient times by a star in the constellation of Argo, itself named after Jason's ship, a beam of which killed him. Argo was among the 48 constellations named in the 2nd century ad by the astronomer Ptolemy in a book that we call the Almagest, from its Arabic name, deriving from Greek meaning 'the greatest'. The star Canopus is the second brightest in the sky, and it seems that the south-eastern wall of the square-built Kaaba in Mecca faces the rising point of Canopus, and the orientation of early mosques was taken from this. Mosques perhaps, but not mosquitoes. The Ancient Greek for mosquito was kōnōps, which does not come from konos ('cone') and ops ('face'), but perhaps from some pre-Greek word. Still, the Greek konopeion 'a couch with mosquito curtains' developed in two ways. One was into the French canapé 'sofa', hence a little bit of bread with something sitting on it: our party canapé. The other development, in the Middle Ages, was into canopy, a hanging, sometimes a hanging of honour. So Canopus has no connection with canopy, but I enjoyed finding that out.'
Metro
4 days ago
- Metro
'I tried to save doomed caver from most horrifying death imaginable - here's why
A first responder has described the final moments of John Edward Jones who went on a doomed spelunking trip to Utah's now infamous Nutty Putty cave and never returned. Jones, 26, suffered 'one of the most horrifying deaths imaginable' when he took a wrong turn and became trapped upside-down in a terrifyingly small crevice, essentially 'crawling into his own grave'. Unable to turn or move backwards, the 26-year-old father suffered 27 hours of hell as his family sent desperate messages of support by a two-way radio. Now, the man tasked with the impossible job of trying to free him has spoken of his ordeal. A devout Christian, medical student and father to a newborn baby, John Edward Jones seemingly had the world at his feet. Born into a large family, John and his brother Josh had been avid cavers when they were children, and sought to rekindle their love of spelunking with a trip to the Nutty Putty cave. The brothers arrived at the cave with a party of nine other friends and relatives of varying degrees of experience- a fairly large group by caving standards. Upon arrival, the group soon split off into two groups, with children and less-experienced adults exploring easier sections of the cave while the seasoned spelunkers went deeper. It was here that things started to go wrong. John's brother Josh was the first one to find him. Creeping forwards down the crevice just inches behind his brother, his stomach filled with dread when he saw John's feet sticking out of the tiny hole which had swallowed him. 'Seeing his feet and seeing how swallowed he was by the rock, that's when I knew it was serious.' Josh told the Salt Lake Tribune. 'It was really serious.' Josh tried to pull his brother out of the hole, but only managed to inch him up a little. As soon as he let John go, he slid right back into the crevice. 'There was this, 'I'm not getting him out,' he said. 'I don't know how anyone is getting him out.' As they waited for rescuers to arrive, they prayed together. At the end of the prayers, though, Josh could hear his own voice waiver and crack. John began to comfort him, telling Josh it would be OK and to be good to his girlfriend. 'The way we spoke', Josh said, 'it felt like John knew what the score was.' What transpired over the next few hours was an intense brainstorming session from a rescue party, who tried every method they could to free John from his subterranean prison. In addition to pulling him, they also tried lubing the walls and drilling away chunks of rock near John, but the hard material and the awkward position made the drilling slow and painful work. After drilling over for an hour, they abandoned this approach after only managing to drill through a couple of inches of rock. Eventually, the team came up with a plan to pull John to safety using a complex system of ropes and pulleys, which they would attach around his feet. 'How are you?' one rescuer asked. 'It sucks. I'm upside down. I can't believe I'm upside down,' John responded. His eyes were red and looked tired but otherwise, had a smile on his face. 'My legs are killing me,' he added. The team decided to take a quick break to regain their strength before making the final push. John was nearly out. But as they grabbed hold of the rope for the fourth and final time, something disastrous happened. All of a sudden, the entire team fell backwards, and the rope became loose in their hands. The closest rescuer felt something hard hit him in the face, and momentarily blacked out from the impact. At the very last moment, one of the pulleys had collapsed under the strain and flown off the wall, sending John plunging right back into the crevice – even deeper than before. John himself had become unresponsive. At this point he had been trapped for over 25 hours and his body had begun to break down from the stress and strain. In a blog post, explorer and YouTuber Brandon Kowallis spoke of first arriving when Jones 'was in and out of consciousness' and talking about seeing 'angels and demons around him'. 'I went in first', he wrote. 'As I wormed my way in I felt my feet touch something soft which ended up being John's feet. I felt them move and immediately lifted my feet and worked my way horizontally into the crack. 'After stabilising myself by jamming my body into a narrower section of the crack I began speaking to John asking him how he was and introducing myself. There was no response. 'I shifted my position a little and tapped him on the leg. I could hear him breathing a deep, gurgling breath, as though his lungs were filling with fluid. 'Then his feet shifted as though he were trying to manoeuvre his legs out of the crack he was jammed in. 'The kicking looked fairly frantic and after a second he stopped and it looked as though he had drifted into unconsciousness.' He added: 'I continued tapping him on the legs and hip to see if I could get a response, but there was no response. 'From there I spent a few minutes studying the passage, the positioning of John, and the rig that was set up, to see how we could get him out from here. It looked very bleak. I wondered if it was even possible to get him beyond this point. 'There was a request to take the radio down to John so that his family could say some words to him. I think it was his father, mother, and wife who spoke to him, telling him that they loved him and were praying for him and that his father had given him a blessing. His wife mentioned a feeling of peace, that everything would be OK. She talked to him about 5 to 10 minutes before I told her that we needed to get back to working at getting him out.' 'At that point I decided to try using the jack hammer. So we waited for it to arrive and then I carried it down to where John was located. The tool was much heavier than I anticipated and to hold it up while wedging my body in the crack took everything I had. Even then, I couldn't get a good angle on the rock because of the confined space and limitations in my own mobility and positioning.' He added: 'And even if we could get him into a horizontal position, he would then have to maneuver the most difficult sections of the passage he was trapped in. 'If he were conscious and had his full strength there was a minute chance he could possibly do it. But even if that was the case it looked grim'. He estimated it could take a week to free him using this method but now it was close to midnight and he was asked to check vitals on John. 'I didn't hear a distinct heartbeat, only some ruffling, fluttering sounds that were probably a result of me shaking as I tried to steady myself in an awkward location. I then jammed my hand between the rock and pressed as far up his torso I could go to feel for breathing. I didn't think I felt anything. 'I reported my findings to the paramedic above and then crawled out so that he could see if he could squeeze in. 'He was able to get down to the point where he could feel his feet and confirm he had passed away. John Edward Jones was pronounced dead at 11.52.' His wife Emily, still outside, refused to leave her husband's body trapped inside the cave, and the local Sheriff assured her they would recover it. More Trending But even following his death it was deemed too dangerous to attempt to recover his body, and the entrance to the passage he was trapped in was collapsed with controlled explosives. Once it became clear that John's remains couldn't be safely removed from the cave, Nutty Putty was permanently sealed off and John's family had a plaque put on the entrance of the cave in his memory. Jones's body remains entombed inside the dark cave to this day – his death becoming a cautionary tale about the dangers of spelunking. Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: I died for 10 minutes — this is what it's like to be dead MORE: Trump Burger owner faces deportation from US after ICE arrest MORE: British girl,11, dies after drowning in swimming pool on holiday in Spain
Leader Live
5 days ago
- Leader Live
Nagasaki hopes atomic bombing will be the last on Earth as it marks anniversary
The United States launched the Nagasaki attack on August 9 1945, killing 70,000 by the end of that year, three days after the bombing of Hiroshima that killed 140,000. Japan surrendered on August 15 1945, ending the Second World War and the country's nearly half-century of aggression across Asia. About 2,600 people, including representatives from more than 90 countries, attended a memorial event at Nagasaki Peace Park, where mayor Shiro Suzuki and prime minister Shigeru Ishiba spoke, among other guests. At 11:02am, the exact time when the plutonium bomb exploded above Nagasaki, participants observed a moment of silence as a bell rang. Dozens of doves, a symbol of peace, were released after a speech by Mr Suzuki, whose parents are survivors of the attack. He said the city's memories of the bombing are 'a common heritage and should be passed down for generations' in and outside Japan. 'The existential crisis of humanity has become imminent to each and every one of us living on Earth,' Mr Suzuki said. 'In order to make Nagasaki the last atomic bombing site now and forever, we will go hand-in-hand with global citizens and devote our utmost efforts toward the abolition of nuclear weapons and the realisation of everlasting world peace.' Survivors and their families gathered Saturday in rainy weather at Peace Park and nearby Hypocentre Park, located below the bomb's exact detonation spot, hours before the official ceremony. 'I simply seek a world without war,' said Koichi Kawano, an 85-year-old survivor who laid flowers at the Hypocenter monument decorated with colourful paper cranes and other offerings. Some others prayed at churches in Nagasaki, home to Catholic converts who went deep underground during centuries of violent persecution in Japan's feudal era. The twin bells at Urakami Cathedral, which was destroyed in the bombing, also rang together again after one of the bells that had gone missing following the attack was restored by volunteers. Despite their pain from wounds, discrimination and illnesses from radiation, survivors have publicly committed to a shared goal of abolishing nuclear weapons. But they worry about the world moving in the opposite direction. Ageing survivors and their supporters in Nagasaki now put their hopes of achieving nuclear weapons abolition in the hands of younger people, telling them the attack is not distant history, but an issue that remains relevant to their future. 'There are only two things I long for: the abolition of nuclear weapons and prohibition of war,' survivor Fumi Takeshita said. 'I only see a world where nuclear weapons are never used and everyone can live in peace.' In hopes of passing on the lessons of history, Ms Takeshita visits schools to share her experience with children. 'When you grow up and remember what you learned today, please think what each of you can do to prevent war,' Ms Takeshita, 83, told students during a school visit earlier this week. Teruko Yokoyama, an 83-year-old member of a Nagasaki organisation supporting survivors, said she feels the absence of those she has worked, which fuels her strong desire to document the lives of remaining survivors. The number of survivors has fallen to 99,130, about a quarter of the original number, with their average age exceeding 86. Survivors worry about fading memories, as the youngest of the survivors were too young to recall the attack clearly. 'We must keep records of the atomic bombing damages of the survivors and their lifetime story,' said Ms Yokoyama, whose two sisters died after suffering illnesses linked to radiation. Her organisation has started to digitalise the narratives of survivors for viewing on YouTube and other social media platforms with the help of a new generation. 'There are younger people who are beginning to take action,' Ms Yokoyama said. 'So I think we don't have to get depressed yet.' Nagasaki hosted a 'peace forum' on Friday where survivors shared their stories with more than 300 young people from around the country. Seiichiro Mise, a 90-year-old survivor, said he is handing seeds of 'flowers of peace' to the younger generation in hopes of seeing them bloom. Survivors are frustrated by a growing nuclear threat and support among international leaders for developing or possessing nuclear weapons for deterrence. They criticise the Japanese government's refusal to sign or even participate in the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons because Japan, as an American ally, needs US nuclear possession as deterrence. In Mr Ishiba's speech, the prime minister reiterated Japan's pursuit of a nuclear-free world and pledged to promote dialogue and cooperation between countries with nuclear weapons and non-nuclear states at the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons review conference scheduled for April and May 2026 in New York City. Mr Ishiba, however, did not mention the nuclear weapons ban treaty. Nagasaki invited representatives from all countries to attend the ceremony Saturday. China notably notified the city it would not be present without providing a reason. The ceremony last year stirred controversy due to the absence of the US ambassador and other Western envoys in response to the Japanese city's refusal to invite Israel.
