When the last of a generation passes, with them goes a knowledge of the past and the link between generations.

On May 3, the Dane family of Shanco, Lisbellaw, bid farewell to James Alexander Dane – or as they call him, Uncle Alick.

Along with his twin, Sam, he was born in April 1927 to parents Robert and Mary. Together they were the middle children with three older, and three younger siblings.

Alick grew up knowing his mother had been told he was unlikely to see his third birthday, as he was “the weaker twin”.

He proved that doctor wrong, and outlived all his seven siblings. In his 92 years he knew and loved people born in the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries – spanning at least 16 decades. Two of his uncles fought in the 11th Battalion of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers during the First World War – his father’s only brother Private William Dane died on 20 November 1916 in Belgium; and his mother’s brother, after whom he was named, Sergeant Alexander Boyd survived the war and was granted a house on Cleenish Island.

During his life, Alick, from a farming family, witnessed the mechanisation of agriculture.

His first employment, after leaving school at 14, was working on a neighbouring farm where he learned to plough fields with horses, and instilled in him a great love of working horses.

His own cherished horse, Bob, was shown at the Fermanagh County Show on several occasions. Though learning the old techniques, he embraced the technological advances in farming, even to the point where he invested in farm machinery and started his own business it hiring out – owning machinery until the day he died.

Alick was the family’s link to the past, and spoke often of the “bad winter of 1947” when Lough Eyes froze over, and his brothers and other neighbours were able to drive across it.

He was able to bring the past to life for the younger family members with his recounting of times gone by. His knowledge of ‘old fashioned’ ways of doing things remained of interest to the new generation of farmers, such as methods of sowing fields with a fiddle, or planting potatoes by hand. Even newer members of the family knew of his love of farming with horses and would bring him video tapes of this for his amusement.

Through all his life, Alick loved to Ceilidh. As he never held a driver’s licence, and indeed never drove a car, his means of transport was always by tractor. He called to specific houses on specific nights each week, always with a bag of treats in hand. Ceilidhing was extremely important to him – always keeping up with what was going on around the area. His brother Sam was just the same. The two brothers lived together until Sam died suddenly in 2003, only four years after they had built their new house. This house replaced the original family home, with an iron roof. Alick, true to his unassuming nature, slept in the loft in the old house under that iron roof until the day they razed it to the ground, much to his sorrow.

With Alick’s passing and the end of that generation of the Dane family, many memories have gone.

He may not have left a digital footprint, but through his stories, the next generation of the Dane family hold onto that link to the past that he left, and will carry it on through the years.