His grandfather, who happened to be visiting, was intrigued and sought more information.
Ewen explained that at the touch of a button he had contacted Mississippi, Denmark, Sydney and South Africa.
“Ach, that’s nithing,” said the old man. “Ilky nicht for years I put ma haun aneth the bed and got china.”
TEENAGERS OFTEN treat their parents with barely concealed contempt, but Eunice Grant, now teaching in Elgin, adored her dad, George, throughout his life “because he was so funny”.
George, a farmer, used to spin his children wildly implausible tales of how poor he and his parents were when he was growing up. These tales included being so poor that there was no money for sugar, so relatives would bring empty sugar bags to the house for him and his brothers to sniff; being so poor that they couldn’t afford school books, so the children would be taken out for walks to read road signs; and being so poor that they couldn’t afford shoes, so they had their feet painted black instead.
“My favourite, though,” Eunice wrote, “was the time when he was supposedly left in the house on his own for a weekend as a young man.”
George claimed he couldn’t find anything to eat in the house, then, by pure chance, he happened to open a cupboard under the stairs at breakfast time and out tumbled a sumptuous spread of ham sandwiches, which he devoured eagerly.
A few hours later, when he was looking for a screwdriver, he opened a cupboard under the sink and there was a steaming hot flow of lentil soup which, again, he polished off quickly.
Finally, he was trying to mend a fuse and went to the fusebox above the front door. He opened it and out fell boxes of ice cream and tubs of jelly.
“Ye see,” he told his wide-eyed daughters, “like I’ve aye telt ye, I nivver kent far ma next meal wis comin fae.”
WHEN HE was a ganger for a sub-contractor at the Howard Doris yard at Kishorn, Wester Ross, Gordon Sangster, of Peterhead, would often have to interview candidates for temporary jobs.
One day, he heard a distinctive North-east voice outside his office, and in shambled a thin and nervous-seeming laddie who said he was looking for a job. “We were actually two men down at the time,” Gordon wrote, “so this lad was a Godsend, but the rules of the firm were that I had to interview him formally. I more or less just went through the motions to keep the paperwork right.”
Gordon started with a light-hearted question to try to calm the lad’s nerves. He asked if the lad could make tea. The lad said he could.
“But can you drive a forklift?” Gordon asked.
The lad said: “It’s surely an affa big teapot.”
PETER KIDDIE used to run “a well-known fast-food outlet” in Aberdeen and was interviewing teenagers for four new positions. He asked one candidate if he had any experience in fast-food retail.
The youngster shook his head, then added: “Jist eatin it.”
BILLY BREMNER (not the football player, as far as we know) described himself as a typical long-haired, grunting, teenage layabout in the Seventies. It was bad enough for his parents to have one such creature in the house, according to Billy, but when his schoolmates, all cast from the same mould, visited every fourth Friday night, it became too much for his dad, Ian, who would sit there, determined not to yield his living-room, arms folded and sour of face.
One evening, the lads’ discussion wore round to things they had known in their childhood, but which were no longer available in the Seventies.
“It was a real ‘Div ye mind?’ session,” Billy wrote, “even though we were only 16 and 17. We must have sounded like pensioners: ‘I mind Lucky Numbers caramels.’ ‘I mind liquorice straps.’ ‘I mind Fireball XL5.’ ‘I mind Champion, The Wonder Horse.’”
Then came a growl from the easy chair by the fireside: “And I mind fin freaks wis aa in circus tents.”
TO DUFFTOWN in the late 1980s now, where 12-year-old Brian landed himself an unofficial weekend job sweeping a distillery yard and doing other odds and ends. It wasn’t so much a job as a favour to Brian’s dad, who also worked at the distillery and who wanted to get his son used to earning his own pocket money. Brian was promised 80p an hour.
When Brian’s mum went along at lunchtime on the first Saturday to see if she could spy her son wielding his brush, she found him, instead, near to tears. When he spotted his mother, it all became too much for him and he began sobbing.
“Fit’s adee?” she said.
“They said I’d get 80p an oor,” he sobbed.
“Aye.”
“Well, I’ve been here three oors and naebody’s peyed me nithing.”
COOKERY FAN Sandra Tait, of Montrose, went to the kirk jumble sale one Saturday morning and discovered a treasure trove of old cookery books. Her 13-year-old, Joshua, was helping her leaf through them when he came upon a particularly old example, well used, with congealed and crusty bits of food and mixture on most of its pages.
“Look, mum,” Joshua said. “A cookbook with free samples.”
A RETIRED Inverurie Academy teacher recalled starting her career in the 1950s and being determined that her classes would be more relaxed than was customary at the time. She was sure her pupils would achieve more if they didn’t feel constantly under pressure.
On her first day with a fourth-year class, she began by explaining that although she wouldn’t stand for any nonsense or indiscipline, she hoped that they would feel that she was approachable with any questions or problems, academic or personal, and that she would get to know them not just as pupils, but also as people.
Rolling up the map of Europe
At that, she turned to the blackboard. Alas, one of those maps, similar to window blinds on rollers, decided to roll itself up, the hook at its bottom catching on her skirt and lifting the skirt with it.
There was an appalled silence in the class as she struggled to regain her dignity, broken only by one lad at the back saying: “Well, we ken you better already.”
DAIRY REP Sandy Cooper was plying his trade at Turriff one day and drove his van up a cul-de-sac bordering Markethill Primary School. Some of the pupils shouted and waved at him, so Sandy, being a cheery chap, waved back.
He sat writing for a minute or two, then got out and was greeted with a shout from behind the school fence of: “Hie, mister! Wid ye get oor ba back, please?”
“Nae bother,” Sandy said, and he set off in the direction the lads were pointing out. At that moment, the school bell rang.
“Hurry, mister,” came the panicky shout. “Hurry or we’ll be late. Rin. Please hurry. Rin. Rin.”
Then Sandy heard one voice say in mild disgust: “Ach, he’s ower aul tae rin.”
TO TORRY ACADEMY, Aberdeen, in the 1950s now, and a first-year class about to lose their teacher temporarily for maternity leave. Two small boys were deep in conversation about the teacher’s obvious change in profile. Eventually, after daring each other to bring up the subject, one marched out to the front of the class.
“Miss, I ken fit’s wrang wi you.”
“Do you?”
“Aye, ye’re pregnant.”
“Is that so?”
“Aye, ye’re haein a baby.”
“Am I really? Well, well, well. Just you go back to your seat now and we’ll carry on with the lesson.”
As she turned to begin writing on the blackboard, she heard him sit down, lean across to his chum and say: “Did ye hear that? She’s pregnant and she nivver even kent. I’d tae tell her.”
A LIBRARIAN at one of the larger libraries in the North-east got in touch to say that she looked up from her desk one day to see standing in front of her one of the town bruisers. The lad, in his mid-teens, was not notably interested in books, so the librarian was surprised to see him, but delighted, too.
He mumbled that he had to complete a school exercise over the weekend and he needed a play by Shakespeare.
“Certainly,” she said. “Which one?”
He looked at her, mystified, and said: “William.”
; A CELEBRATED Aberdeen architect, who will remain nameless, bought a summer-house in the Aboyne area in the 1930s, at roughly the same time as the famous Willing Shilling Fund was organising holidays in the countryside for poorer city children.
He recalled strolling round his grounds one summer day when he came upon a group of these boys staring up at a tall tree and having a terrific argument.
“Hie, mister,” one of them shouted when they spotted him. “Fit’s ’at things hingin up there?”
He walked up and explained that they were the especially large cones that blue-cedar trees always produced.
“See!” the inquisitor told his mates. “I telt ye they werna mealie poodins.”
ONE TEACHER told us about receiving a sick note from a parent, explaining that her son had become ill after playing outside in bad weather while wearing trainers that were so old that the soles had been worn beyond repair. The note read: “Please excuse Alan from school. He has diarrhoea through a hole in his shoe.”
RETIRED ENGLISH teacher Renee Falconer told us she once asked a second-year class to write a short essay entitled “What Poetry Means To Me.”
One pupil wrote: “Poetry is when every line starts with a capital letter and doesn’t reach the other side of the page.”
Kissies and Bosies
North-east Man isn’t given to overblown romantic gestures. Given the tales in this chapter, perhaps it’s best kept that way.
GEORGE NOBLE, of Buckie, was sitting in his easy chair one night in the Sixties when his son, Alan, came home and announced he’d landed a plum role in the school play.
“Fit’s ‘at?” George inquired.
“He’s the heid o the faimly; mairriet twinty-five year,” Alan said.
“Stick in, loon,” George said, going back to his paper. “Ye’ll maybe get a spikkin pairt yet.”
INVERURIE CLERKESS Ina Ellis remembers the mild conflict that arose between her parents every time the subject of her mother’s best friend arose in conversation. “My mother adored her pal and my father couldn’t stand the woman,” Ina wrote.
“I must admit, she seemed to have an uncanny sense of timing and would always turn up at mealtimes, thus making my mother feel obliged to invite her to stay and eat.
“My father stood it for so long until one evening, after he’d had a pretty rough day anyway, the pal turned up as usual, just as my mother was about to serve her home-made egg-and-bacon pie.
“‘Oh, I div like hame cookin,’ my mother’s pal said.
“‘In that case,’ my dad said, ‘bliddy weel bide at hame and cook.’”
THE PATH to romance wasn’t easy for Donna Galbraith and Andy Patterin. Before they were married, Andy knew that Donna had a fantasy about being serenaded on Valentine’s Night. For some reason that he still can’t explain, Andy decided that not only would he serenade his beloved, he would do it nude.
That was risky, but his big mistake was to try a bit of Dutch courage at one of the town pubs. He rolled out at 9pm, staggering in the general direction of Donna’s second-floor flat.
He disrobed quietly enough in the shadows behind a couple of front-garden bushes, but not even temperatures hovering at freezing point were enough to sober him up. He picked up a handful of gravel and flung it at the second-floor window.
When he saw the curtains pulling back, he threw his arms wide, displaying himself in all his shrivelled glory and began wailing over and over: “O, Sole Mio!”
Alas, Andy was still one street away from Donna’s flat, and the elderly sisters who shared the flat were appalled and called the police 20 minutes later.
The bobbies had a hard time not laughing once Andy explained himself. Donna turned up to march him home. Andy has since confined his nude singing to the shower.
THE TABLOIDS worked themselves into a frenzy after Victoria Beckham announced that her son had been named Brooklyn because that was where he had been conceived. On the morning the news broke, two women on an Aberdeen bus were drawing the matter through hand when one observed: “In that case, my aulest should hiv been caaed Seaton Park.”
INA AULD, of Bucksburn, was hearing from a neighbour that the neighbour’s son had got himself engaged to a very tall girl from Dufftown.
“Tall?” Ina said.
“At least six fit,” the neighbour said, at which the neighbour’s husband added: “Aye, she could aet strae aff a reef.”
INA ALSO recalls her days as a fairm quine in Buchan, and hearing two chiels in one of the village hotels on mart day, horsing into scotch broth and discussing their wives.
“There’s nae a please in her aenoo,” one said. “The least little thing I say or dee jist sets her aff.”
“Ye’re lucky,” said the other. “Mine’s a self-starter.”
BACK TO the early 1930s now, when six-year-old Eric, from Donside, was asked by his auntie if he liked school. Eric said he did.
“It’s a lang walk for ye,” she said. “Twa mile there and twa mile back. Hiv ye naebody for company?”
“There’s the quine up the road,” Eric said, “bit I dinna like her.”
“Fit’s adee wi her?”
“She rins efter me and chases me and tries tae kiss me,” Eric said.
Auntie laughed. “I widna worry aboot that, Eric,” she said. “Jist you wait sivven–eicht year and it’ll be a different story, mark ma words.”
“I ken,” Eric said. “I’ll be able tae rin faister.”
SOMEONE WHO signs himself just “Len” wanted us to know of his neighbours in Cattofield after the war. One evening, when the woman of the house was at home alone, there was a knock on the door. She went to the end of the lobby and cried: “Fit div ye wint?”
“Is this far Angus bides?”
“Aye,” she sighed, sliding back the bolt, “jist cairry him in.”
THE LATE Peter MacConnochie was a renowned pianist in Banffshire and West Aberdeenshire between the mid-1960s and the late 1970s. Although his favourite instrument was the church organ, Peter would also turn his hand to earning an extra fiver by playing piano at some of the classier wedding receptions in the two counties.
Peter sometimes had his doubts that some of his matrimonial clientele were as classy as they liked to pretend, and his favourite story came from one Banff wedding where he wasn’t sure how well his somewhat up-market repertoire was being received by the guests.
Eventually, he took the microphone and asked for requests. There was a buzz of conversation followed by a portly gent, blurry of eye and unsteady of gait, shambling over to Peter, clapping a matey arm round his shoulder and slurring:
“Any requests?”
“Gie’s some Picasso.”
“FOO ARE YE gettin on wi the wife?”
“Jist great. We’re nae spikkin.”
FORMER BANFFSHIRE MP Hamish Watt remembered the tale of the farm being worked by three bachelor sons and where the kitchie deem had fallen pregnant.
The three lads’ mother was horrified and shamed, and demanded to know of the parish doctor which of her sons he thought was the father.
“I dinna ken, Mary,” the GP said, “bit there’s ae thing for sure: ee’re the grunnie.”
WHEN MYLENE GRANT, of Ellon, went with her husband of 18 months to visit her mother at Peterhead, she thought she detected an atmosphere. When her husband left the room for a smoke, Mylene thought she would confront the situation head-on.
“Right. Fit’s adee?” she asked.
“Am I never going to be a grandma?” blurted her mother.
Mylene started laughing. “Is that aa?” she said. “Well, we’re nae rushin intae things, though we’re keepin wir fingers crossed.”
“Well,” snapped her mother, “if that’s fit ye’re deein, ye’ve been misinformed.”
ONE TORPHINS couple were celebrating their diamond wedding shortly after the last war and the village minister called and asked their secret for a long marriage.
“Well,” said the husband, “on the day we got mairriet
, I says tae Meg: ‘Now, Meg, I’ve a gey sharp tongue in ma heid and you’ll whiles get the roch edge o’t, but fin ye’ve hid eneuch, jist you ging oot the door for a walk.’
“And she says tae me: ‘I’ve a gey sharp tongue masel, so jist you dee the same.’”
“And that’s wir secret: plenty fresh air and exercise.”
TWO STONEHAVEN worthies were discussing modern loose morals, when one said proudly: “I had no idea if my wife was man or woman until I was married.”
“Oh,” said the other one, “I could hiv telt ye.”
GARDENER BILLY DUGUID remembered visiting the home of a previous girlfriend at Banff in the 1970s and feeling a bit intimidated by how posh the girl’s parents seemed to be.
“I managed to relax a bit,” Billy wrote, “when the mother announced grandly: ‘I hope you like goujons of sole. I prepared them myself. The recipe’s Condom Blue.’”
AT A SMALL Banffshire village not a million miles from Aberlour, it became apparent that the extramarital habits of a man of the parish were being discussed in great detail by the community.
At one evening event, the mostly female assembly was dutifully appalled by such immorality. The phrase “his peer wife” cropped up several times.
The only man nearby, a brosey chiel in his sixties, was saying nothing. Soon, the women sought his views. “Wullie, fit decent man wid dee things like that? I mean, you wid nivver hiv slept wi anither man’s wife, wid ye?”
“Nivver,” Wullie said.
Then he took a swig of his shandy and grinned: “Dozed aff a coupla times, though.”
The Shoppie
The shoppie, large or small, is often the focal point of a community, be it a village, parish or city district. Since all places where people gather are fountains of natural humour, we thought we’d devote a chapter to it once again.
SCHOOL COOK Alice Robertson was climbing the stairs to the popular Morgan McVeigh restaurant and tourist centre between Huntly and Inverurie when she had to stand aside for three women, one of them white-haired and elderly and the two others whom Alice took to be the woman’s daughters.
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