THE ancestors of a once prominent Innerleithen family have made sure their memory will live on for future generations.

But the restoration project only came about after a a chance encounter with a local historian last year.

Luath Grant Ferguson has regularly travelled to Tweeddale in recent years from his home in Hampshire to commemorate the deaths of his uncles and their friend during World War I.

He also helped publish his late father's memoirs recorded during the war years in Innerleithen, Life at Pirn House: A Border Childhood.

But last year Luath was directed towards two broken memorials in Innerleithen cemetery - that of his grandfather, the Rev John Grant Ferguson, and of his great aunt, Mina Ferguson.

Luath explained: "Thanks to Gwen Stein of the Borders Family History Society, my wife and I discovered the graves as we were leaving Innerleithen following a visit last year, and were horrified by the condition into which they had fallen.

"The Reverend John Grant Ferguson's memorial was so overgrown by moss and lichen that the inscription was illegible.

"The badly broken memorial stone of his older sister, Mina, lay piled in pieces against the outer wall of the cemetery.

"I informed my aunts, Mary and Margaret Grant Ferguson, all of whom gladly rallied around to fund the restoration of the two gravestones."

Rev John Grant was the first priest in-charge of St Andrew’s Episcopalian Church in 1904 - the year also of his early death at 44.

Funded mainly by Innerleithen’s branch of the Ballantyne family and designed by Charles Howes, one of John Grant Ferguson’s former parishioners in South London, the original memorial reflected his attachment to then current arts & crafts movement.

His older sister Mina, who became the second wife of his friend, the Rev John Thompson of Rosslyn Chapel, died following an unsuccessful surgical operation on the very morning Scottish newspapers were announcing the sinking of the Titanic in April 1912. Her neighbouring memorial, which included a casket containing her ashes, was also badly damaged and neglected.

Over the past few months the memorials have been restored by David Hardie & Son of Galashiels.

And last week members of the Grant Ferguson family returned to Innerleithen for a memorial ceremony.

Flowers were laid and short passages from articles printed in the St Ronan’s Standard were read, including a report of the shock the town felt when the new priest-in-charge of its newest church died of a stroke only a few weeks after the inauguration by the Bishop of Edinburgh.

Family members also enjoyed readings by Nicola Murton, John’s great grand-daughter, of entries taken from the remarkable personal teen-age diary of Kitty King.

Kitty, who lived with her family in Walkerburn, attended services at the little church created inside Pirn House by John Grant Ferguson, and wrote fascinating comments about his family all of whom became her close friends.

So fond was she of the man she always called Mr Ferguson, that for many days following his sudden death she could not bring herself to write her daily diary entry.

Kitty died of tuberculosis in her mid 20s in 1918 and is buried close to the Grant Ferguson graves.

Luath added: "All at the family gathering were thrilled to welcome Jo King, who is related to Kitty by marriage and who has copied on to her computer every word of Kitty’s diary, a huge but rewarding undertaking.

"To everyone’s delight we were able, with Jo, to lay flowers on Kitty’s grave, which could not be closer to those of Mina and John, being immediately adjacent.

"The family would like to record its special thanks to Scottish Borders Council’s cemetery maintenance team, who cleared around the restored memorials and sowed fresh grass seed.

"We warmly invite local residents, especially the present congregation of St Andrew’s, to visit the restored graves.

"As Gwen Stein points out, the Rev John Grant Ferguson is the only priest buried in the cemetery."

The story of the Ferguson family is contained in Life at Pirn House, A Border Childhood, which is available at Smail’s Printing Works. All proceeds go to Smail’s Future Proof in-house heritage protection project.