A Christmas card with a very poignant message is spanning the decades back to the sixties.

For west Fife man Kerr Doig has recreated a Christmas card he first produced back in 1964 to commemorate the opening of the Forth Road Bridge.

And it was coverage in The Courier, celebrating the iconic bridge’s 45th anniversary last September, which prompted Kerr, a volunteer with Dunfermline City Archives, to think about producing a similar card.

Some schools have already bought cards, with profits raised going towards their funds. Any profit from others sold will go to the Dunfermline City Archives.

Mr Doig recounted the reason for the original back in the sixties.

He was running a furniture shop in South Queensferry at the time the bridge was being built. With a life-long passion for stamp collecting, he set out to create his own first day covers, featuring stamps and sketches of the bridge.

He sold 20,000, with thousands being signed by the Provost of the Royal Burgh of Queensferry, James Lawson, with a donation from each going to the Kennedy Memorial Fund in commemoration of the late US President.

His design even outsold the first day covers on sale at the local post office.

A policeman who was a keen amateur artist had asked to display a painting of the bridges in Mr Doig’s shop and it was then bought—appropriately enough—by the owner of the Two Bridges Cafe.

And so that painting proved the impetus for the 1964 cards.

Mr Doig would love to find out about the artist, whose initials may be W.M., perhaps with a surname Marshall.

However, while the original cards were embellished with “Season’s Greetings”, the 2009 version, still featuring the Forth Road Bridge and its neighbouring Forth Rail Bridge, this time bears the message “Peace on Earth,” for a poignant reason.

“With the war in Afghanistan, we decided to make it a peace card.

“I would love for everyone to buy one and then send it to Gordon Brown to ask him to bring the troops home and would like to persuade as many people as possible to send him one,” he said.

Sheila Pitcairn, the chairwoman of Dunfermline City Archives, said, “This year in particular we think that is very important when our young men and women are out fighting we want them to know we are all thinking about them.”

The cards can be ordered by calling Mr Doig or Mrs Pitcairn on 01383 737508 or 730042 or at www. dunfermlineheritage.org