One of the daughters said: “Did ye see they’ve got oatmeal soap?”
“Awa ye go,” said the old lady. “Fa washes oatmeal?”
“DOUBLE SANDY” was the nickname of a celebrated Aberdeenshire chemist, otherwise known as Mr Alexander Alexander. Once, he had to reprimand a youth for smoking in his shop.
“Ye sell fags, though!” said the outraged teenager.
“Aye,” said Sandy, “and I sell caster ile, tee.”
SANDY STRONACH, Master of the Doric Festival, tells of an old woman returning, indignant, to a country shoppie between the wars with a box of matches that she had bought a few hours earlier.
“Yer spunks is weet,” she chastised the grocer. “They winna crack.”
The grocer demanded the box of matches, took one out, ran it across the backside of his moleskin trousers and it burst into flame first time.
“See?” he told her. “Nithin wrang wi them.”
“Tyach,” said the old woman. “I canna cairry your erse aboot wi me aa day.”
IT SEEMS that Cuminestown once had one of those country emporia that stocked absolutely everything. One day, a farming chiel from the area turned up and asked: “Div ye stock cutlery?”
“We div that,” said the owner.
“Grand,” said the farmer. “Could I hae a chuntie?”
TEAROOMS ARE great places for meeting the North-east at first hand. Ann Young reported overhearing a conversation between two elderly women in the café of a well-known city store, which went something like:
“Did ye see Taggart last nicht?”
“Aye.”
“Good, eh?”
“Aye.”
“Did ye ken the murderer wis him?”
“Aye.”
“Foo did ye ken? I didna ken.”
“Weel, ye myn fin he wis in Take The High Road and his brither got jiled for killin the lassie?”
“Aye.”
“There ye go. They’re aa tarred wi the same brush, that faimly.”
SANDY DUNCAN was a noted jeweller in the Rosemount area of Aberdeen for many years. People often popped in for a news, even when they had no need of jewellery or watch repairs, and Sandy encouraged them with friendly banter.
Occasionally, a customer could give as good as he got.
“Foo are ye gettin on wi that new watch I selt ye?” Sandy inquired of one customer one day.
“Jist gran,” said the customer. “What a watch. It dis an oor in 55 minutes.”
BANCHORY READER Mary Milne recalled an English gentleman visiting a country shop and asking the country quine who was behind the counter if she could recommend any places or nearby attractions that were worth visiting.
“Oh,” said the girl, aware of the profound scenic and cultural limitations of her home parish. “Ye’re best gaun oot aboot a bit.”
Mary heard later that the tourist had been stopping people in the street and asking for directions to Ootabootabit.
A FAMOUS tale of an antiques shop on Deeside involves a customer buying six Victorian soup plates, but, just as they were being wrapped up, noticing a substantial crack along the bottom of one.
When this was pointed out, the assistant advised: “Ach, jist mak yer soup a bittie thicker.”
SANDY REID used to run a corner shoppie in Cotton Street, Aberdeen, and found it difficult to keep his store stocked with all the faddy products that dieting women wanted. When the banana diet came along, he was delighted, because he knew that keeping stock would be simple.
One customer on the diet was Jean, an ample matron whose husband worked in the shipyards. Jean had tried every diet from every magazine, but with little success. Then she started the banana diet and adapted it after a few weeks, on the advice of another women’s magazine, to include peanuts (for protein) and palm oil (for light fats).
When Jean hadn’t turned up in the shop for a few days, Sandy stopped her husband as he was buying his morning packet of cigarettes before heading off to the shipyards. Was the bananas, peanuts and palm-oil diet doing Jean any good?
“Hisna deen nithing for her ata,” said Jean’s man, “though ye should see her climmin trees.”
SANDY ALSO started stocking a new ice-cream supply, hoping to please his customers with a new home-made taste, but the conservative ice-cream aficionados of Cotton Street and round about were suspicious of new products.
One shipyard worker turned up at lunchtime and saw the new display. “Is yer ice-cream pure?” he demanded.
“As pure as the lass o yer dreams,” Sandy replied.
“In that case,” said the customer, “gie’s twinty fags.”
FARMER JIMMY SIMPSON, of Huntly, told us of the old-style country emporium, where the grocer was proud of his comprehensive stock of fine malt whiskies.
“I’ve got the lachin kind, the greetin kind, the freenly kind, the fechtin kind, the singin kind and the dour kind,” the grocer used to say.
“The funny thing is, they aa come oot o the same bottle.”
FLORIST MARY JESSIMAN prided herself on helping even her most nervy customers find exactly the arrangement they wanted. When one elderly chap turned up in her Aberdeen shop one Wednesday afternoon, she jaloused straight away that he wasn’t comfortable being in a florist’s shop, and she decided that he needed help.
“The wife and me hisna been spikkin,” he said. “It’s as weel that I buy her flooers and get it oot o the road. And wid it be possible for ye say on the card: ‘You were right after all.’?”
Mary smiled and said she was sure that would be possible. “How much were you thinking of spending?” she said. “Twenty pounds . . . 30 . . . 35?”
The man blanched. “I wis thinkin mair 10 or 12,” he said. “She wisna that richt.”
THOSE OF you who, like the two of us, manage a wee quiet cheer every time you hear somebody pittin on the pan-loaf and promptly faain doon throwe’t will enjoy this tale from a Keith quine who visited one of Aberdeen’s posher stores (now defunct) some years ago.
The store’s assistants were noted for doing their best to match, even exceed, what they imagined were the social standing and graces of their extremely airchie clientele.
One such assistant was caught unawares by a blue-rinsed customer waiting patiently at the counter for service. The assistant bustled across, smoothed down her outfit and said: “Good morning, moddom, and fit wye may I help you?”
OVERHEARD IN the queue at Summerhill Post Office, Aberdeen: “Isn’t it a richt peety aboot Tony Blair and his wife?”
“Fit wye?”
“Him wi sae muckle teeth and her wi hardly ony.”
THE LONG-TIME grocer at Dunecht, Basil Lessel, could stand many things and many people, but he couldn’t thole grocery reps, who were the bane of his extremely busy shop life.
According to Jimmy Sim, of Culter, Basil used to be visited by so many reps that he couldn’t get on with running his shop. Basil finally snapped when one such cocky young rep arrived from Aberdeen thinking he would try the bright-and-breezy approach to win some custom from Basil.
“Lovely morning, Mr Lessel,” he said.
Basil replied drily: “Did ye come aa the wye fae Aiberdeen tae tell me that?”
ANOTHER COUNTRY shopkeeper – let’s just say somewhere in mid-Buchan – was known everywhere from Fraserburgh to Ellon as a man for whom every penny was a prisoner, and who would no more offer a bargain or money off than he would cut off his own hands.
One of his customers said of him drily one day: “He’s that ticht that fin he bends his knees, his een close.”
FROM INVERURIE now, and Betty Forbes told us her mother had returned from doing her messages in the Safeway supermarket on the edge of town. Her mum was excited and flustered all at once.
“His something happened, mither?” Betty asked.
“The mannie in front o me in the queue at the checkoot collapsed,” said Betty’s mother. “Ae minute he wis jist stannin there, shovin his tatties up the line, the next minute . . . B
OOF! . . . flat oot.”
“Was he all right?” Betty asked.
“Dinna ken. Fin I left, they were still giein him artificial insemination.”
Doon on the Fairm
Agricultural humour is the backbone of the Northeast. As, indeed, is agriculture.
BACK IN the 1980s, when it was fashionable among farmers in England to sell up and move to the northern half of Scotland, thereby doubling or trebling their acreage, Peter and Patricia Richardson moved to a smallholding just outside Keith.
Keen to make themselves known in the community, they visited one of the town bars and were soon getting on famously with the locals.
“And hiv ye been bothered wi the moth?” one of the worthies inquired presently.
Peter and Pat looked at each other. “The moth?”
“Aye, ye hinna been bothered yet?”
“Not that we know of,” said Peter. “Should we be worried?”
The worthy turned to address the bar: “They hinna hid the moth yet, boys.” And a roar of approval got up.
Peter and Pat were beginning to grow a little unsettled, for their croft was out of the way and no one had warned them of possible infestations and crop damage. No amount of pleading would make the bar customers spill the secret, and the Richardsons went home more than a little anxious.
They were just making themselves a late-night cup of tea when there was a knock at the door. Pat looked at the clock. It wasn’t far short of midnight; they were half a mile from the nearest neighbour, and it was pitch-black outside.
Both went to the back door, and there, on the step, stood Wullie, a well-known drouth in the area, unsteady on his feet and obviously looking for more drink now that the pubs had closed.
“Aye,” he said. “I saw yer licht on.”
They had finally met The Moth.
BACK TO the Saturday-night dances that were popular at wee country halls throughout the Northeast between the wars. At one time, the “Mississippi Dip” was a fashionable dance, involving both parties hesitating, then bending the knees slightly as if about to drop into a crouching position.
At Cushnie Hall, one farmer invited a young lass who was new to the area up to the floor. She had never danced this dance before and, as the band struck up, inquired nervously: “Excuse me, bit fan exactly div ye dip?”
“Weel,” the farmer said, “usually the back eyn o the season.”
A STRICHEN farmer reported stopping one of his pals in the street and inquiring: “Wis that you that gaed doon by on a bike the ither nicht and waved?”
“It wis,” the second man said, before pausing and adding: “If it hidna been me, I widna hiv waved.”
SOME OF the loneliest farming spots in the Northeast were the Cabrach crofts. One day, a group of tourists happened past on their way from Donside to Dufftown, and paused at the top of the glen to drink in the view of all the rolling moorland.
The “Mississippi Dip”
A crofter was nearby mending fences, and the tourists strolled over and complimented him on his homeland, adding: “You’re very lucky to stay in such a lovely spot.”
“That may be so,” he told them. “Bit foo wid you like tae hae tae traivel 15 mile ilky time ye wintit a dram?”
“Well why don’t you buy half a dozen bottles and keep them in the house?” suggested one of the tourists.
“Na,” said the crofter. “Whisky disna keep.”
ONE OF the North-east’s most celebrated stockbrokers from the 1940s was Hugh Park, who used to tell of attending Maud Mart with a cattle-dealer friend and watching a farmer standing beside a pen of 20 steers waiting to go into the ring.
The dealer approached the farmer and, after checking that the beasts were his, asked how much he was expecting for them.
The farmer named a price, and the dealer, who was anxious to conclude a sale and get back to Glasgow quickly, offered £2 a head more than the asking price, hoping that would be sweetener enough.
The farmer accepted, then went quiet.
The dealer asked if the price was all right and the farmer replied: “I wyte it’s aaricht, bit I’d hiv likit a lot mair spikkin aboot it.”
HUGH WAS sitting in the bar of the Royal Athenaeum in Aberdeen, which will be remembered by older readers as “Jimmie Hay’s”, after a long-lost former owner, when another Buchan client and farmer arrived.
Hugh asked what the farmer would like to drink. “Na, na, Hugh,” came the reply. “I’m nae drinkin the day. I’ll jist hae a whisky.”
HUGH WAS trapped in the 1947 snowdrift that paralysed much of Buchan, but he managed to find lodgings at a small farm. As the evening wore on, he became more and more puzzled by how such a poor and small farm could survive. Before he left the next day, he asked the farmer.
“Weel,” said the farmer, pointing at the solitary farmhand. “He works for me, bit I canna pey him, so in twa year he gets the fairm. Then I work for him till I get it back.”
COLONEL JACK REID, of Cromleybank, Ellon, had a famous pedigree herd of beef shorthorns and occasionally let a smaller-scale farmer nearby in Formartine, who had two shorthorn cows, have the use of a bull for free.
One of these cows produced a good bull calf, which the farmer did not have castrated and kept on for breeding. Colonel Jack was at the old Ellon Mart one day and overheard the bull’s proud owner talking to a potential client for the use of the young animal.
“Is’t a good stock-getter?” the potential client inquired.
“Guaranteed, min,” said the owner. “Better than that, he’ll sen’ yer heifers hame wi smiles on their faces.”
DURING THE surge of union activity of the 1930s, a union official was dispatched round Buchan to see if he could drum up membership among farm workers.
He came to a small place near Maud and asked to speak to the farmer. The farmer appeared at the byre door and the union official explained his mission. “How many folk have you working here?” he inquired.
“Twa men and an eediot,” the farmer said.
“And how much do the men get paid?”
“Thirty bob a week.”
“Fair enough. And what about the idiot?”
“He gets new dungars and new beets fin he needs them, and he gets his keep.”
The union official shook his head. “No, no, no,” he said. “That’s exploitation of the working classes. We canna hae that. I’m needin tae spik tae him.”
“Weel,” the farmer said. “Ye are spikkin tae him.”
IN THE late 1940s, Tarland WRI asked one of the male villagers if he would organise a men’s night, at which the women of the Howe of Cromar would be entertained by the local fellows doing their best musically, vocally, humorously or in whatever other way occurred to them.
One was a young English agricultural student, Mike Howden, who was on a placement at a nearby training farm.
Halfway through the programme, a trio sporting a melodeon, a moothie and a fiddle strode onstage. Suddenly, the MC realised that there were no seats for the trio and shouted a request: “Quick! Three cheirs for the band!”
At which point, the unwitting young Mr Howden began calling: “Hip-hip, hooray! Hip-hip . . .”
GEORGE SMITH was a bank agent at Turriff and one day an old customer, a Mr Kindness who had a croft at Auchterless, turned up to do some financial business.
During the proceedings, George asked Mr Kindness: “Did ye nivver think o gettin mairriet?”
“Weel,” said Mr Kindness. “It’s like this: an aul een’s nae eese and a young een winna hae me.”
FORWARD TO 1978 now, when a young family had just moved to the Chapel of Garioch area and were struggling to understand the broad Doric of their neighbours. “It was bad enough for me,” the mother told us, “but I hadn’t realised how much the children were struggling, too.”
The youngsters, aged eight and four, were intrigued one day when a farming neighbour offered to bring along her pony to let the children see. As expected, the children were delighted. Seeing t
heir enchantment, the neighbour urged them: “On ye go, noo. Dinna be feart. Gie the pony a clappie.”
At which point the two stood back and shyly offered the animal a round of applause.
Characters
It’s often said that Scotland doesn’t have any characters any more. That’s nonsense. There are still plenty of characters; we just don’t recognise them yet. As one of our correspondents told us: “When he’s alive, he’s a pest, a nuisance or a show-off. It’s only when he’s deid that he becomes a character.”
ONE OF the legends of the North-east motor trade was Jackie Urquhart, who plied his business in upwards of 30 different showrooms from the 1940s to the 1970s everywhere from Elgin to Peterhead to Stonehaven.
It was his habit of moving to a new employer almost every year, it seemed, that earned him his nickname, in the trade, of “Hit-the-Road Jack”.
Like all good salesmen, Jackie enjoyed the cut and thrust of closing the deal, and was often disappointed if the customer capitulated too early, for he liked sweetening the pill with little extras that were supposedly free, but whose price had already been built into the cost of the car.
His favourite of many car-trade stories concerned the early 1970s, when metallic paint began to arrive. It was regarded as the utmost in good taste and high automotive fashion, although it added roughly 5% to the price of a car. Jackie, however, saw “the paint” as the ultimate bargaining tool.
His customers on the occasion in question were an elderly husband and wife from the country, who sat patiently listening to Jackie’s patter and playing their cards close by saying nothing.
When even Jackie began to sweat at the unusually deadpan response, he flung his hands back in the gesture of capitulation so beloved of old hams and said: “OK. OK. You’ve got me. If you sign up now, I’ll throw in the paint for nothing.”
It was the first time the customers had showed signs of animation. “Ye better throw in the pent,” the man said. “We’re nae for a car that’s nae pentit.”
A Dash O Doric Page 3