Up, up and away for Carluke Rotary Club

The town’s Rotary Club’s appeal for Calls for Heroes on behalf of servicemen and women in Afghanistan might have grabbed the headlines, but it was for its efforts to help others far closer to home it was given the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service.

It is the first Rotary club in the country ever to have achieved this high honour.

It’s little wonder then, that morale in the club is sky high – quite literally in the case of its president Archie Ralston!

To celebrate the achievement, Archie fulfilled a long-held desire to get a birds-eye view of Carluke Rotary’s patch from thousands of feet up in a microlight aircraft.

He took to the air from Strathaven airfield, accompanied by pilot Graham McNally.

His flight took him over the town and surrounding local countryside, including Carluke Rotary’s ‘home’, its Cartland Bridge Hotel meeting place.

For more on the flight, pick up a copy of this week’s Carluke and Lanark Gazette.