Peter Leslie

Pindar was born in auld Launcherhead; an old Raw that was demolished many years ago. They were then the eldest houses in Lochegelly. His mother was a farm servant at Dothan Farm, and she later married David Baxter, one of the oldest families in Lochgelly, who was grandfather of the well-known Lochgelly Baxter family who have been closely identified with instrumental music in the town. The late David Baxter, whom I can recall from boyhood playing his beloved coronet round about Cartmore Braes, was a half-brother. Two other brothers were also soldiers. His real name, or at least the name under which he joined the army was Peter Leslie. The pen name of Pindar was doubtless suggested by his reading acquaintance with John Walcott, who wrote satires and lampoons round the end of the eighteenth century under the pseudonym of Pindar, or it may have suggested itself from the French poet Pindar. In Lochgelly he was never known by any other name than Pindar. He never married though he had many a romance. He early showed a taste for rhyme and literature though he had not much of an early education. In his book “The Autobiography of a Private Soldier” he state that he was born in the beautiful village of Glendale, which of course is Lochgelly. he was well known as John Pindar ,(Peter Leslie) “The Lochgelly Poet”