Balmerino 

The River Tay has the largest catchment and the greatest volume of water of any River in Britain. Some 20,000 bathtubs full of water race past every second. The water carries great quantities of silt from upstream and you can see this deposited in the sandbars and mudflats at low tide.

 

On the far shore, a strip of gold is visible in winter. These are the Tay Reedbeds - at 16km long, the longest continual stretch of reeds in Europe and they hold over 10% of all the reeds in Britain. In late May the colour of the far shore changes suddenly from gold to green as the new growth crowns the old, dead stems of the previous year. They grow incredibly quickly - about 4cm a day in midsummer.

 

The reeds were used as thatching and, traditionally, many of the weavers' and farm cottages in Kirkton and Balmerino were thatched.

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On 13th June 1944, a joint paratroop training operation involving British and Polish paratroopers, named "Operation Bluebell", resulted in the drowning of about nine paratroopers between Balmerino and Naughton when a plane lost its bearings and the paratroopers inside launched over the Tay. All the casualties were from 8th Para and locals remember parachutes washed up on the shore and rescue and retrieval boats working up and down the river. Apparently the final paratrooper could see that he was over water and refused to jump - disobeying repeated orders to do so. Despite the circumstances he was court-martialled. You can read details of the story here.