ANGUS TARTAN Week’s programme of community events kicked off in Montrose at the weekend.

For the first time in almost 60 years the former RAF base at Montrose, now the Montrose Air Station Heritage Centre, was the scene of a march past led by a pipe band to celebrate the founding of the Royal Air Force in 1918.

The Graham of Montrose Pipe Band led the march followed by past and present members of No 603 (City of Edinburgh) Squadron including 93 year-old John “Dinger” Bell, other former RAF personnel and representatives of the Angus Air Training Corps squadrons with Provost Bill Middleton taking the salute.

Saturday’s event brought together two families whose lives are linked by a tragic flying accident during the second world war.

Pilot Instructor Flight Lieutenant Ernest Powrie, from Dundee, and Flying Officer Fred Brown, Portsmouth, died when their planes collided on October 21, 1943, near Laurencekirk. Both were stationed at Montrose and had been engaged in blind flying training which involved their student pilots wearing a hood.

Powrie’s pupil Sgt R. C. Reid was also killed while Sgt B. K. Crane, Brown’s pupil, baled out and was the only survivor.

On Saturday the Flight Lieutenant Powrie’s son, the Rev Jim Powrie, Kirriemuir, and Flying Officer Brown’s daughter, Mrs Carol Downing from England, met for the first time.

A programme of arts, literature and music organised by the National Trust for Scotland at House of Dun started on Saturday with the opening of an exhibition by wildlife artist David McRae.

The week’s celebrations at the house will close with a two-day Angus Craft Fair on Saturday and Sunday and a medieval encampment by the Knights of Monymusk on Sunday.