Kirkcaldy Guardians: Alice Soper’s lifelong love for the Lang Toun gifted by her dad
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Alice was born in the single soldier flat in the town’s David Street in 1949, to Hilda and Robert Roy, the Garrison Sergeant Major the Black Watch Territorial Army base on Hunter Street.
Pipe Major Robert Roy is a military legend. He was captured in Crete and then flown to a prison camp near Athens from where he escaped and was hidden by local families.
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Hide AdSailing to Turkey and travelling onwards with fake ID to Tobruk in 1942, he played the Black Watch into battle, despite being wounded and tending to the injured and awarded a Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM).


“In the 1950s we saw him being awarded the MBE at Buckingham Palace by Queen Elizabeth,” Alice said..
The family stayed in Perth before returning to the newly built 81 Winifred Crescent - “the local police sergeant, doctor, bank manager and the town architect were all in the cul-de-sac. It was a friendly community.”
On August 24, 1960, when Alice was eleven, her father passed away overnight at Edinburgh Castle where he had been rehearsing for the lone piper spot at the military tattoo. She has fond memories of childhood, “I loved moving house and shared my father’s fondness for Kirkcaldy,” she says.
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Hide AdShe followed a passion for teaching, training in Dundee, getting married, living in Glasgow and Leicester, welcoming sons, Liam and Colin. When the marriage ended, Alice came home teaching firstly at Torbain Primary which had been decanted to the newly vacated school buildings in Glebe Park and St Mary’s Road after being burned by a fire raiser.
“I was determined,” she says proudly, “I got myself a job and a flat for us on Balfour Street,”.
Alice moved into learning support spending 10 years at Valley Primary.
“We supported kids in the classroom. I got promoted to visiting schools for any support they needed, and we also started a monthly session making resources that schools could share for kids with reading problems”.
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Hide AdAlice was promoted to assistant head, before applying for a British Army teaching job in 1989 and settling in Verden, Germany and meeting Captain Les Soper through the theatre club and the various parties on camp.
In 1991 they married the same year as the Gulf war started: “Les was away for five months. The worst thing was watching it on TV.”
Alice returned to Kirkcaldy in 2003, via Hampshire and London as a school inspector.
“I'd always go and say to staff ‘I'm a teacher like you’,” she recalled.
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Hide AdShe served as a local councillor until 2010 for the Kirkcaldy Central and Links ward - key issues at the time included a threat o close the Links Library,” - before retirement beckoned with community work remaining a passion along with her four grandchildren.
When asked her thoughts on the Kirkcaldy community, Alice says, “People are lovely in this town, it’s a great place. If people have ideas, come forward and suggest things.”
Its impossible to write about Alice without mentioning Les, now a retired Major, who has supported the town since his army days and is currently chair of Fife Community Interpreting Service.
Alice and Les have also volunteered for Growing Kirkcaldy, Beveridge Park Development Group, Kirkcaldy Civic Society and Kirkcaldy West Community Council.
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Hide Ad“I was happy to settle in Kirkcaldy after nearly 40 years in the army travelling the world,” Les says.
Alice, with a lifelong love of the Lang Toun gifted by her beloved Dad as a girl, who honours it in his name, every single day. We’re glad Kirkcaldy is your home.
> ‘The Piper of Tobruck’ by Alice Soper is available from the author and Kirkcaldy Galleries local lending.
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