“When Bill, the pal, died in early 2000, my dad was inconsolable. He wouldn’t speak to anyone. He was almost angry at Bill for dying on him.
“When we went to see him the day before the funeral, he announced that he wouldn’t be going to Bill’s funeral. We were astonished and asked him why not.
“‘Well,’ he said. ‘He winna come tae mine.’”
HELEN HENDRY, of Alford, remembers that whenever her stepfather was asked by the bairns what he had been doing, he would reply: “Riddlin rikk and rowin it awa in barras.”
SSPCA OFFICERS from various parts of northern Scotland have an important job to do, but they find some calls from older customers especially bewildering.
Among strange callouts in recent years was one from a woman who had spotted a dead horse in a pond. It turned out to be a floating plank. One panicky soul reported a magpie trailing its wing on the hard shoulder of the A90 between Aberdeen and Stonehaven. That was a discarded trainer. Birds trapped in chimneys are usually smoke-alarm batteries running down, says our contact.
One Banffshire pensioner phoned the fire brigade in quite a state because she had spotted a snake sleeping behind her TV and was worried it was going to pounce and bite her if she tried to leave the room. Firemen discovered that the woman’s son had strapped together various cables behind the TV into a few loops and coils to make the place look tidier.
Our favourite, however, was the woman who called the police, screaming and crying that she had trapped a wildcat in her bedroom and would someone come quickly because the animal was so angry that it was bound to wreck her furniture and shred her bedding.
The wildcat turned out to be a pair of the old lady’s bloomers. It all ended happily, but if her bloomers looked like an angry wildcat it does make you wonder what the woman looked like.
ONE CORRESPONDENT overheard an elderly couple in a Huntly tearoom involved in a heated conversation about religion and asylum-seekers. It will come as no surprise to observers of North-east values that both of them wanted the whole lot repatriated by the boatload, pronto.
As a Parthian shot, the woman added: “Michty, I can mind fin Muslim wis fit wir mither biled clootie dumplin in.”
FROM STRATHBOGIE comes the tale of the old crofter dying suddenly and the people of the parish visiting the widow to pay their respects. When one of his old chums turned up, the widow asked if he would like to visit the deceased, who was lying in state in the front room.
“Fairly that.”
He was guided through and looked at his old pal for a few moments then observed: “Man, he looks weel enough. There’s even a bit smile on his face.”
“Ye’re richt,” the widow said. “Jock wis aye a bittie saft. He disna ken fit’s happened til him yet.”
ACCOUNTANT IAN JOHNSTON, brought up at Turriff and now living in Aberdeen, recalled visiting his (now-deceased) mother-in-law at Echt when two neighbours arrived with a present for the old lady from their recent holiday in Bangkok.
Had they enjoyed the holiday, the old lady inquired.
“Well, bits o’t,” said the man. “Though, if we’re honest, we were a bittie put aff wi aa the prostitutes and drug dealers and sex shops and ory stuff like that.”
The conversation went on for a few minutes more and the couple left. Ian said his mother-in-law turned quiet and looked distressed.
“Fit’s adee?” Ian said.
“Ach, I’m nae cut oot for times like this,” she said. “I’m ower aul. Fancy haein tae thole that kinna fool dirt on yer holidays.”
“Well,” Ian said, “that’s fit ye’ve tae expect nooadays in Thailand.”
“Thailand?” said the old lady, brightening. “I thocht they said Tarland.”
AN AVID novel-reader near Forres liked long romantic sagas, but discovered as the years wore on that the novels became more and more graphic in their bedroom scenes and left little to the imagination.
Her niece, who told us this story, said that one week when the old lady was otherwise busy, she asked her husband to pick up a selection of new books from the town library. She said he could choose whatever he thought she would like.
Alas, her husband had no idea what she would like, so he sought the advice of the librarian, adding: “Make it something relaxing because she’s desperate for a break from non-stop sex.”
SEVERAL ELDERLY women were attending a function at Longmorn, near Elgin, and the conversation turned inevitably to one of their contemporaries who had long since left the area.
They began trying to sort out, among half-remembered truths and colourful rumours, the fortunes of the exile since her departure.
“Weel,” said one, “I ken she mairried a Jim Aitken.”
“Fit?” said another, shocked. “A black mannie?”
BACK IN the 1960s, Grampian TV presenters would spend many a weekend opening this fête and that country fayre. George Innes, of Ellon, reports that after one such event his late mother-in-law, Elsie, returned from an event in the town to announce proudly that she had managed to obtain June Imray’s autograph.
“Really?” said George’s dad. “Fit dis it say?”
“Well,” said his mum. “It says: ‘June Imray’.”
COOKERY DEMONSTRATOR Mamie Mitchell was looking after her two grandchildren, Beth (4) and Stuart (2). After the usual bedtime story, Mamie discovered that her two charges were still wide awake. What to do?
Mamie said she would sing them some of her favourite Christmas carols until they fell asleep. She started off with Away in a Manger, followed that with Once in Royal David’s City, and was just starting Silent Night, when Beth advised:
“You can stop singing now. We’re both sleeping.”
AN ELGIN reader’s elderly aunt was a feisty old bird with a strongly developed sense of social decorum and morality. She visited her nephew some years ago and, late one evening, appeared in the kitchen and asked what “conjugals” were.
Not sure if she could take the truth, he asked why she wanted to know.
“Because there’s a play on the TV and I’ve just heard one man say that he was away home for his conjugals.”
“Ah,” he said, thinking quickly. “That’s a milky drink you have before bedtime.”
She appeared quite happy with this explanation, and trotted off.
Two decades later, after her funeral, he was at the biled-ham after the interment and chatting with his late aunt’s friends when he learned that, latterly, when she had evening visitors, she had got into the habit of looking pointedly at the mantelpiece clock and telling her guests they would have to go soon as it was nearly time for her conjugals.
TWO WOMEN were overheard travelling on the bus from Banchory to Aberdeen in March 1998. Our source, who was seated in the row behind, says the pair’s conversation was a pretty vicious character assassination of someone else, which concluded:
“And she’s nae bonnie. Well, nae her face.”
Mixter Maxter
On the basis that every good filing system needs a “Miscellaneous” folder, here are all the odds and ends that didn’t fit in naturally anywhere else.
ONE OF the tales that has passed into Donside legend comes from the 1950s and the days when a village football team, the Alford Favourites, managed to find themselves a sponsor in the form of one of the community notables. We won’t be naming him in order to preserve the peace.
So grateful were the Favourites for the man’s generosity that they invited him to make a wee speech from the centre spot and to kick off the first match of the season.
Against a howling gale, the assembled crowds and teams heard the sponsor conclude his address: “It has been a great privilege to support my local team in this way, and I am honoured that you thought of letting me start the game for you. If I’m spared, I hope you’ll let me come back in future seasons so I can kick your balls off again.”
BILL SANGSTER, former purveyor of cold meats to the gentry, often used to take his dogs for a walk round the Victoria or Westburn
parks in the city.
“I never bought a pedigree dog in my life,” Bill wrote. “I always went to the dog home for a rescue animal. They always had more character, I thought.”
Bill didn’t realise how much character until his new signing, Herman, a small terrier of indeterminate breed, was running back and forth one blazing June lunchtime. Another dog-owner stopped to speak to Bill.
“New dog, Bill?” said the other man.
“Aye,” Bill said.
“Fit kinna breed wid that be?”
“Well,” Bill said. “We’re thinkin his father wis a cairn.”
“Maybe,” said the other man, “and it looks like his mither wisna carin.”
OUT ON the oil rigs now, and a Peterhead reader tells of sitting in a recreation room on one platform with three dozen of his mates, all watching a live UEFA Cup match. The half-time adverts started, including one for a red-top tabloid promoting a new feature series.
“This week in The Sun,” said the voice-over. “Improve your love life on holiday.”
An Aberdeen voice called from the back of the room: “Leave the wife at hame.”
BACK in the days when crossing the Forth Road Bridge on a motorcycle cost nothing, dedicated sixtysomething biker David Strathcarron was heading north from London on a wee tour to blow the cobwebs out of his system.
He was delighted when he was waved through the tollbooth free of charge at South Queensferry, and headed off across the rolling farmlands of Fife, thoroughly enjoying himself.
“It all came to an end as I approached Dundee,” David said. “I stopped at the tollbooth, where the rather surly occupant demanded 20p, I think it was.”
“Fit kinna breed wid that be?”
“I told him: ‘But I was able to cross the Forth Bridge for nothing.’
“‘Aye,’ said the tollman. ‘The farrer north ye come, the mair miserable we are.’”
THE TOUCHING naivete of new young dads is always worth a mention, and Lorna Cormack, of Fraserburgh, wrote to tell us of leaving the Mattie with their first-born. When the Mattie sister asked if there were any last questions, Lorna’s husband, Brian, said: “Aye, is there a set time that we should wakken him up in the morning?”
BILL FARQUHAR, of Elgin, was out fishing with his father one Sunday afternoon in the 1950s when an old acquaintance strolled up on the bank and stopped.
“Foo mony hiv ye catched, Sandy?” the friend inquired mischievously, eyeing the empty bag at the two Farquhars’ feet.
“Well,” said Bill’s dad, “if we catch this ane, then we catch anither twa, we’ll hae three.”
ABERLOUR TAXI-DRIVER Willie Roy was summoned to the Craigellachie Hotel one afternoon. Two Japanese tourists needed to travel the few miles to Dufftown to do some shopping and indulge their passion for all things Scottish. They told Willie they wanted to buy “some really good whisky and some butteries”.
Willie thought The Whisky Shop would be the place for a wide selection of drams, but warned that teatime was maybe a bit late to be finding butteries at Dufftown.
He dropped his two charges at The Whisky Shop and decided to do the friendly thing and go and see if he could find some butteries for them. There was none at the baker. None at the newsagent. None at one grocery.
With hope evaporating rapidly, Willie tried another grocer and found possibly the day’s last bag of butteries in the whole of Upper Banffshire. He was just on the point of paying when his two guests bowled up.
“I found you some butteries,” he said. “The last bag.” He held it out to them proudly.
They looked at each other, mystified. “What’s that?” asked one, pointing at the North-east’s most palatable delicacy.
“That’s your butteries,” Willie said.
“No,” said the pair. “We want butteries. Butteries! For camera!”
JEAN ABERNETHY, of Ellon, was in a restaurant in Aberdeen in the late 1970s, and the service was extremely slow. Indeed, almost every customer in the place was sighing and looking at watches.
The mood lightened considerably, however, when one elderly country chiel stopped a waitress and said: “Excuse me, dearie. Did the lassie that took ma order leave ony next o kin?”
MOTOR BUFFS among you will know of the delights of satellite navigation, the somewhat expensive system fitted to many modern cars which takes triangulation readings from six satellites orbiting the globe and can pinpoint a car’s position to within 10 yards and thus guide drivers who are unfamiliar with any given area.
Alas, all this twenty-first-century technology has yet to impress Doric Man.
Car-salesman Bill Pirie was on a test drive with an elderly country chiel and prospective customer. He wheeled off the road, intending to keep the “satnav” as the coup de théâtre – the gimmick that would clinch the deal.
The farmer peered at the screen and the display of altitude and of global-positioning in degrees, minutes and seconds. “You’ll always know where you are, wherever you are,” Bill said proudly.
“Bit I ken far I am,” the country chiel said. “I’m in the Tesco car park.”
BACK in the dying days of the Buchan Line, the stationmaster at Strichen was worried by a drunk, teetering at the edge of the platform, waiting for the last Saturday-night service to the Broch.
He decided to go out and warn the lad to sit down and behave himself, worried that the station would be getting an unfavourable mention in the traditional doom, death and disaster Monday-morning front page of The Press and Journal.
“Ye’ll hae tae stan back fae the edge o the platform,” he told the drunk. “There’s a train comin shortly.”
The drunk tried hard to focus on the railman and, swaying gently to left and right, slurred: “Ye’re surely affa feart for yer trainie.”
PASSENGERS ON the BA1301 Aberdeen–Heathrow flight one July morning in 2002 heard the following cabin announcement as their aircraft turned at the end of the runway, the noise of the engines began building and the plane began rolling towards takeoff.
“There you go, ladies and gentlemen. As one bad egg said to the other bad egg: ‘We’re aff.’”
BACK TO 1984, now, and the height of the miners’ strike. The Thatcher Government had authorised the use of every means possible to import foreign coal to maintain energy supplies, while Arthur Scargill and the National Union of Mineworkers were equally determined to prevent any such imports.
When word got round that a couple of boatloads of coal were arriving from Poland at Fraserburgh Harbour or one of the other wee harbours on the knuckle of Buchan, a busload of flying pickets was dispatched northwards by strike control.
According to John Henderson, of Bridge of Don, the Central Belt pickets got there just in time to see the dockworkers set about unloading the coal. The strikers were furious.
“You can’t do that,” they said. “That’s black cargo.”
“I wyte,” said one dock worker, waving aside the protests, “I’ve nivver seen coal ony ither colour.”
The Tales That Got Awa
Once again, here are the stories that arrived in the mail and which didn’t have quite the same ring of truth as all the others. They were too good to waste, though. With the customary warning that you enter this section at your own risk, go ahead.
BACK TO the 1950s again, and the skating pond at Alford, where the locals used to hold ambitious skating contests while their curling counterparts had their bonspiels at the curling pond nearby.
At one such festival, a trio of judges was to be brought in from outside to lend a grander air to proceedings, but only the judge from Aberdeen and the judge from Elgin turned up, so Wullie, an unwitting local, was pressed into service as the third judge.
As Mina from Craigievar did her stuff on the rink, she stumbled once or twice. When the time came for the marks, the Aberdeen judge held up the boards showing 4 and 7. The Elgin judge held up 4 and 9. Wullie held up the maximum 6 and 0.
When the two expert judges queried his top marks, Wulli
e said: “I ken she hytered a puckle times, bit ye’ve tae myn it’s affa skytie oot there.”
A COUNTRY doctor was woken one night in the Fifties. At the other end of the phone was a panicky woman. “Oh, doctor, doctor,” she cried. “Ye’ll hae tae come. Ma man’s deein!”
“Your husband’s dying?” said the doctor. “What makes you think that?”
“It’s affa skytie oot there.”
“He’s rollin aboot in the bed moanin and he’s come oot in an affa sweat. I canna get ony sense oot o him ava.”
The patient was a well-known drouth in the village, and the doctor was reluctant to climb out of a cosy bed for what he knew would be a waste of time, especially on a foul November night, so he calmed down the caller and said: “Have you got a barometer?”
“Aye, we hiv.”
“Well, just you go and put the barometer on your husband’s chest, watch the needle for a few hours to be sure he’s all right, and come and see me in the morning.” The woman promised she would do precisely that, and the doctor settled back to continue his sleep.
He was just drifting off half an hour later when the phone rang again. It was the same woman. “Oh, doctor, doctor. I can only thank ye.”
“Thank me?” said the doctor. “Is your husband all right now?”
“Aye, yer barometer advice did the trick. I put it on his chest and the needle said Affa Dry, so I gied him a dram and noo he’s sleepin like a bairn.”
OUR POLICE contact, whose tip-offs appear in other chapters, also tried to persuade us that the Queen Street front desk in Aberdeen once took a call from an elderly Aberdonian man who wanted to report that his next-door garden was occupied by a shapely blonde in her early twenties who appeared to be sunbathing topless and wearing only a G-string.
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