The arrival of 2014 brought an internet phenomenon to Lochgelly
as the town folk responded to a new site in their thousands.
Behind the explosion of interest was Derek Johnstone, helped by his fiancée Lindsay Dobbie, and
he hit on the idea of starting a "Lochgelly Past and Present" group on the Facebook web site.
Hundreds
of members joined in the first few days of 2014 and as news spread worldwide the total speedily broke the 1000
barrier.
Current membersip now tops 2700 and whole generations are enjoying
swapping memories and contributing almost 3000 photos.
Lochgelly web site creator Ian
Fraser soon realised that Derek's site was one for the future and nominated him for the prestigious "Local Hero" annual
award from Kingdom FM in the best group category - and the judges agreed with him that Derek was a deserved
winner.
Ian and Jim Kinnell also put Derek forward as a candidate for Lochgelly''s "Citizen o the Year" and he
duly won that accolade as well.
Although
the majority of the group appear to prefer the Lochgelly Past concept, there is still a fair amount of Present interest
and this was seen to advantage when an appeal to find any long-lost relatives produced several aunts, uncles and cousins for
one hopeful enquirer.
This was surpassed in October, 2014, when a plea from an American
lady was published at lunchtime and before the day was out she was chatting to her sister, a Lochgelly group member who had
not even known she existed.
The group is open to all Facebook members and is
free to join. Anyone interested
in Lochgelly is urged to join the crowd now and keep the Happyland spirit alive.