Robin Kelsall writes: I was saddened to hear that Gerald McQuade, having fought long and hard, finally lost the battle with a brain tumour and died in January of this year. Despite living in Wales for many years, Ged (as he was known to us all in our youth) never lost sight of his great love of the Ochils and he and his wife Ann were loyal members of FotO. At some point during most summers, he made the trip "home" to visit his daughter who lived in Tillicoultry and, without fail, he would contact his long time pal, Tony Cervi; together they roamed the western end of the hills - keen walkers and ornithologists both.
It was probably in 1948/49, that kind of time, that I first encountered Ged. We Blairlogie boys had just formed Blairlogie Thistle FC and, desperate to measure our skills and all-round abilities against meaningful opposition, we challenged Menstrie to the first of very many football matches: their team was always organised by Ged. One of our several shortcomings was numbers: we could only muster, at most, eight players. So, in order to put a full team on the pitch, we had to borrow some from Menstrie. Ged saw to this. Obviously, he made sure that those "lent" were unlikely to help us contrive a shock victory (defeat was our portion in the great majority of matches) and, on one occasion, a clear attempt by the sophisticates of metropolitan Menstrie to pull one over on the Blairlogie naïfs was totally successful when Harry Caddie was transferred to us for the sum of two shillings. Thereafter, he was known to one and all as two-bob-Caddie.
After those early years, contact was lost for a very long time; indeed, it wasn't until January 2000 that it was re-established. Ged's daughter had bought him a copy of my Blairlogie Boyhood for Christmas and he wrote describing the pleasure it had given him - especially the chapter on Blairlogie Thistle. A couple of summers later, he appeared on the doorstep and we spent a happy afternoon reminiscing about youthful days as elderly men tend to do. And now he's no more.
Ann brought Ged "home" and he's buried at Logie cemetery, "close to our beloved Dumyat" as she puts it. Our thoughts go out to daughters Roslyn and Dawn and, of course, to Ann who has expressed the wish to remain a member of FotO.