ABERDEEN
Without Prejudice
We went to Scotland, all so innocent to begin with, we didn't realise we were about to take a trip that could well have been our last.
My husband, B, and I in 1989, traveled to The UK for Rachels wedding, my Cousin Davids's daughter. B never wanted to go to the UK,
"Full Of Poms"
But he loved it, couldn't get enough of the history and grandeur of the Stately Homes, Joy, my half Sister, took us to Kent, to a Castle that Anne Boleyn had grown up in.
It was outstanding, immaculately kept, silk wall hangings, hand made wallpaper exotic with Tropical birds, birds of paradise, cool azures and red hot reds. It was unbelievable, the whole thing
We had done York, with it's cobbled streets and tiny shops and another stately home and Auntie Betty suggested we go on up to Scotland on the fast train.
My birthplace, Edinburgh and we went on The Flying Scotsman, speeding along at 200 miles per hour.
We were both of us so excited, the train had a buffet car, food drinks and B had never seen this before.
We crossed over into Scotland and the place is breathtaking, I'd been before to My Uncle Ian's in Glasgow, my Dad's birthplace.
People can't describe the beauty of Scotland, more beautiful than Ireland. It's vast and untamed and wild and you can imagine standing on the cliffs, great Viking ships crossing the sea, ready to invade.
The history, the lochs, the cliffs and fishing villages, the splendour of Edinburgh, the kilts and cashmeres in the big shops. just to die for.
We crossed the Firth Of Forth Bridge, according to Collins Encyclopedia Of Scotland.
"The One Immediately and Internationally Recognised Scottish Landmark"
A magnificent feat of Engineering, I felt so proud of it, ridiculously so. And that James Watt, a Scot had invented the first Steam Engine. John Logie Baird, the first TV.
And that I was born around the corner from where Robert Louis Stevenson had lived.
An invalid, most of his life, he wrote from his "Land Of Counterpane"
We were meeting up at Aberdeen with my Aunty Heather who would then drive us to Whitehills on the east coast of Scotland, (a few miles from Banff,) Whitehills a medium sized Scottish Fishing Village.
And sure enough my Aunt was there waiting for us as the train pulled in. Beautifully groomed as ever, hair immaculate.
She seemed the same a little bit anxious perhaps. But chatty as ever.
Aunt Heather and My Dad's other sister,Gladys had come out to Australia a few years earlier, to see my Dad and visit with us and it was the first time we had seen them since Jackie's and Winn's Wedding In the U.K. 20 years before.
They were both widows of long standing and their very kindly husbands had left them well off.
So they decided with the money to travel the world, together and so they came to Australia, had been to most countries in the world and were on their last leg on to New Zealand and then home.
They blended right in and they went up to Queensland family as well. Both women were soft spoken Scottish women, both liked a drink, not too much, they knew when they had enough.
Real ladies, and we went shopping and I bought a Royal Albert Dinner Set at their urging, in their honour and I still have it, precious memories.
They were helpful always helping throughout the house, and fell in love with our girl "Cocky", who was usually a complete bitch to other women, jealous of her Owner. B.
B spoilt "Chocky", the cockatoo. She sat on his shoulder and tried to kiss him and she would hiss at us if we approached him, comb up, sulphur crested, and would snap at us.
She was huge and ruled the house.
B leaving his best suit jacket once and she pecked all the stuffing out of the shoulders.
And B fell in love with them , my Scottish Aunts, as he had with my English Aunts, my Mothers sisters, Aunty Pat and Aunty Betty.
He was always falling in love with elderly women as he was the apple of his Nana H's eyes.
Back To Scotland
Aunty Heather greeted us enthusiastically and was so pleased to have visitors, she had a row with her only daughter a few years before and they weren't talking any more,
Her Sister Gladys said she had been distant lately, funny and taking offence easily or something but she had put it down to isolation and loneliness. Well here we were, ready to keep her company for a few days.
So it was all bustle to get the luggage in the car and get on the road as it was approaching late afternoon in Aberdeen and rush hour would be upon us soon.
A light rain had started, the sudden darkness making street lights blink on.
Heather wanted to avoid rush hour at all costs so she inserted the keys in the igntion and tried to mount the kerb in front of us, twice!
B. helped her engage reverse and we shot off at breakneck speed. Our heads snapped back in our seats and I saw B grab the door handle with one hand.
She had the radio going as we chatted and caught up on family news and she proceeded to shoot every red light in Aberdeen, I could only see the back of B's head, ramrod straight.
I think he might have murmured something at this stage,and whimpered a little but he sat and waited and then we were on the Open Road. A man in the distance started out in to the road with a Big Round Red Sign that said STOP,
Aunty shot straight through and pulled up about 500 metres down the road. The man running after the car, puffing his lungs out by the time he reached us. My Aunt imperiously said to him,
"Yes, young man ??"
The man was red in the face almost staggering when he got to the car,
"I told you to STOP"
Oh, she replied,
"I thought you said, go on"
And she shot the handbrake and took off with a little spurt. Not long after we pulled in to a little Scottish Garage with petrol and drinks. Aunty heather got out and carried on into the shop and B turned around from the front seat,
"Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrkkkkkk, "
"Janette I swear get me out of here, she's nuts, I am not staying in this car with her,
I didn't imagine ending my life on some scottish country back road at the hands of some crazy woman."
And we both almost wet ourselves laughing, stopping when Heather returned with a TWIX bar for each of us and muffling it as we took off, rocketing up the road.
The woman could not drive and I thought maybe she hadn't driven much lately being isolated and all that. She probably walked to the shops and church, chemist, hairdressers.
She drove through the streets of Whitehills quite sedately I thought, apart fom the old man she chased up the pavement, I thought B's hair was going to turn white on the spot
From my position the back of his head looked petrified but we finally reached Aunty Heathers house, ( great, another terrace house ) and safe at last on Terra Firma
I had a feeling B wanted to kiss the ground or lie down on it and hug it and refuse to move But we carried our bags in instead and Aunty took us on a tour of the house and bustled off to make us some tea.
"Janette", B whispered. "I am not getting in that car with that woman again, she'll kill us. God how long since she's been driving, and what about that man that had a sign ...."
And we dissolved into laughter, absolutely cracking up, rolling on the carpeted floor unable to stand up, clutching at each other,
We couldn't stop, tears ran down our faces, and in the other room, Aunty Heather was laughing too, but at nothing.......
She brought out of the Freezer a large whole Atlantic Salmon, she had black bun, which has black pepper in it.
Haggis as well which we passed on, and she had made Scottish Tablet which is to die for and takes hours to make.
We sat at the table in the Dining Room and all I could think of the whole time was that it was a bleak and isolated place to be living if you were already a bit eccentric.
And every so often Heather would go in another room and start cackling to herself.
B and I would look at each other and concernedly we followed her around. We had no idea what to do, except to keep her talking and act like everything was normal.
And all the first night we slept in the old double bed upstairs and exploded with laughter, hushing each other, and hugging each other with glee, tears running down our cheeks, we were like naughty children.
The English especially love eccentrics but I had a gnawing feeling in my gut, that all was not well.
We took her shopping and out for dinner and shopped in the excellent little village shops for angora woolies and kilt material.
My granny was originally a McKenzie, so we had a Tartan, which we went searching for and off to Marks and Sparks food hall which was our favourite haunt, B's and mine.
We couldn't get over the tiny roasts and steaks and the aisles of biscuits, one whole aisle devoted to just Jaffa Cakes.
We loved the shopping there and thats one unusual thing B loved to do, he loved to shop.
He did the grocery shopping at home, especially when I had just had a baby.
Dog trotting off with a list, that might have maternity pads or Nipple Shields written on it.
Didn't bother him he was a farm boy.
It had been his job as a boy on the farm to unpack and put away the groceries and he loved to do that, so I let him.
He was good at dress shopping, shoe shopping, and he was patient when I would drag him around all the shops in Wakefield too.
Boots the Chemist, Top Shop, Chelsea girl, he never minded.
Gold was beautiful there and he bought me a rose gold bracelet and I think one for his Mum.
He bought a beautiful set of Luggage for the Happy Bride and Groom and couldn't wait to give it to them.
Back To White Hills,
B fretted about how to approach Aunty Heather about not getting in the car with her again but in the end it was simple. She just handed him the keys and said,
"I thought you might like to drive back, B. "
And he grabbed those keys, like a lifeline and away we went, Aunty sitting in the back. She might have been gaga but she was no fool, saying after minutes,
"I drove abroad last year, in Spain and they drive on the other side of the road over there"
B looked at me and I looked at him and he said in an aside to me,
"Wonder how many deaths there were on the road last year in Spain?"
and that was it, we couldn't look at each other for laughing, and we had to keep it suppressed until we waved to my Aunt from the safety of The Flying Scotsman,
Waving away at her lonely figure and as soon as I was back in Wakefield I rang up my Aunt Gladys and said Auntie Heather was not traveling really well,
mentally and they called an ambulance that day and she was assessed and had dementia, and went into a home where Joy and Gladys could visit.
And ever after it became a story we shared, always funny and always moving
lol Nette x
We went to Scotland, all so innocent to begin with, we didn't realise we were about to take a trip that could well have been our last.
My husband, B, and I in 1989, traveled to The UK for Rachels wedding, my Cousin Davids's daughter. B never wanted to go to the UK,
"Full Of Poms"
But he loved it, couldn't get enough of the history and grandeur of the Stately Homes, Joy, my half Sister, took us to Kent, to a Castle that Anne Boleyn had grown up in.
It was outstanding, immaculately kept, silk wall hangings, hand made wallpaper exotic with Tropical birds, birds of paradise, cool azures and red hot reds. It was unbelievable, the whole thing
We had done York, with it's cobbled streets and tiny shops and another stately home and Auntie Betty suggested we go on up to Scotland on the fast train.
My birthplace, Edinburgh and we went on The Flying Scotsman, speeding along at 200 miles per hour.
We were both of us so excited, the train had a buffet car, food drinks and B had never seen this before.
We crossed over into Scotland and the place is breathtaking, I'd been before to My Uncle Ian's in Glasgow, my Dad's birthplace.
People can't describe the beauty of Scotland, more beautiful than Ireland. It's vast and untamed and wild and you can imagine standing on the cliffs, great Viking ships crossing the sea, ready to invade.
The history, the lochs, the cliffs and fishing villages, the splendour of Edinburgh, the kilts and cashmeres in the big shops. just to die for.
We crossed the Firth Of Forth Bridge, according to Collins Encyclopedia Of Scotland.
"The One Immediately and Internationally Recognised Scottish Landmark"
A magnificent feat of Engineering, I felt so proud of it, ridiculously so. And that James Watt, a Scot had invented the first Steam Engine. John Logie Baird, the first TV.
And that I was born around the corner from where Robert Louis Stevenson had lived.
An invalid, most of his life, he wrote from his "Land Of Counterpane"
We were meeting up at Aberdeen with my Aunty Heather who would then drive us to Whitehills on the east coast of Scotland, (a few miles from Banff,) Whitehills a medium sized Scottish Fishing Village.
And sure enough my Aunt was there waiting for us as the train pulled in. Beautifully groomed as ever, hair immaculate.
She seemed the same a little bit anxious perhaps. But chatty as ever.
Aunt Heather and My Dad's other sister,Gladys had come out to Australia a few years earlier, to see my Dad and visit with us and it was the first time we had seen them since Jackie's and Winn's Wedding In the U.K. 20 years before.
They were both widows of long standing and their very kindly husbands had left them well off.
So they decided with the money to travel the world, together and so they came to Australia, had been to most countries in the world and were on their last leg on to New Zealand and then home.
They blended right in and they went up to Queensland family as well. Both women were soft spoken Scottish women, both liked a drink, not too much, they knew when they had enough.
Real ladies, and we went shopping and I bought a Royal Albert Dinner Set at their urging, in their honour and I still have it, precious memories.
They were helpful always helping throughout the house, and fell in love with our girl "Cocky", who was usually a complete bitch to other women, jealous of her Owner. B.
B spoilt "Chocky", the cockatoo. She sat on his shoulder and tried to kiss him and she would hiss at us if we approached him, comb up, sulphur crested, and would snap at us.
She was huge and ruled the house.
B leaving his best suit jacket once and she pecked all the stuffing out of the shoulders.
And B fell in love with them , my Scottish Aunts, as he had with my English Aunts, my Mothers sisters, Aunty Pat and Aunty Betty.
He was always falling in love with elderly women as he was the apple of his Nana H's eyes.
Back To Scotland
Aunty Heather greeted us enthusiastically and was so pleased to have visitors, she had a row with her only daughter a few years before and they weren't talking any more,
Her Sister Gladys said she had been distant lately, funny and taking offence easily or something but she had put it down to isolation and loneliness. Well here we were, ready to keep her company for a few days.
So it was all bustle to get the luggage in the car and get on the road as it was approaching late afternoon in Aberdeen and rush hour would be upon us soon.
A light rain had started, the sudden darkness making street lights blink on.
Heather wanted to avoid rush hour at all costs so she inserted the keys in the igntion and tried to mount the kerb in front of us, twice!
B. helped her engage reverse and we shot off at breakneck speed. Our heads snapped back in our seats and I saw B grab the door handle with one hand.
She had the radio going as we chatted and caught up on family news and she proceeded to shoot every red light in Aberdeen, I could only see the back of B's head, ramrod straight.
I think he might have murmured something at this stage,and whimpered a little but he sat and waited and then we were on the Open Road. A man in the distance started out in to the road with a Big Round Red Sign that said STOP,
Aunty shot straight through and pulled up about 500 metres down the road. The man running after the car, puffing his lungs out by the time he reached us. My Aunt imperiously said to him,
"Yes, young man ??"
The man was red in the face almost staggering when he got to the car,
"I told you to STOP"
Oh, she replied,
"I thought you said, go on"
And she shot the handbrake and took off with a little spurt. Not long after we pulled in to a little Scottish Garage with petrol and drinks. Aunty heather got out and carried on into the shop and B turned around from the front seat,
"Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrkkkkkk, "
"Janette I swear get me out of here, she's nuts, I am not staying in this car with her,
I didn't imagine ending my life on some scottish country back road at the hands of some crazy woman."
And we both almost wet ourselves laughing, stopping when Heather returned with a TWIX bar for each of us and muffling it as we took off, rocketing up the road.
The woman could not drive and I thought maybe she hadn't driven much lately being isolated and all that. She probably walked to the shops and church, chemist, hairdressers.
She drove through the streets of Whitehills quite sedately I thought, apart fom the old man she chased up the pavement, I thought B's hair was going to turn white on the spot
From my position the back of his head looked petrified but we finally reached Aunty Heathers house, ( great, another terrace house ) and safe at last on Terra Firma
I had a feeling B wanted to kiss the ground or lie down on it and hug it and refuse to move But we carried our bags in instead and Aunty took us on a tour of the house and bustled off to make us some tea.
"Janette", B whispered. "I am not getting in that car with that woman again, she'll kill us. God how long since she's been driving, and what about that man that had a sign ...."
And we dissolved into laughter, absolutely cracking up, rolling on the carpeted floor unable to stand up, clutching at each other,
We couldn't stop, tears ran down our faces, and in the other room, Aunty Heather was laughing too, but at nothing.......
She brought out of the Freezer a large whole Atlantic Salmon, she had black bun, which has black pepper in it.
Haggis as well which we passed on, and she had made Scottish Tablet which is to die for and takes hours to make.
We sat at the table in the Dining Room and all I could think of the whole time was that it was a bleak and isolated place to be living if you were already a bit eccentric.
And every so often Heather would go in another room and start cackling to herself.
B and I would look at each other and concernedly we followed her around. We had no idea what to do, except to keep her talking and act like everything was normal.
And all the first night we slept in the old double bed upstairs and exploded with laughter, hushing each other, and hugging each other with glee, tears running down our cheeks, we were like naughty children.
The English especially love eccentrics but I had a gnawing feeling in my gut, that all was not well.
We took her shopping and out for dinner and shopped in the excellent little village shops for angora woolies and kilt material.
My granny was originally a McKenzie, so we had a Tartan, which we went searching for and off to Marks and Sparks food hall which was our favourite haunt, B's and mine.
We couldn't get over the tiny roasts and steaks and the aisles of biscuits, one whole aisle devoted to just Jaffa Cakes.
We loved the shopping there and thats one unusual thing B loved to do, he loved to shop.
He did the grocery shopping at home, especially when I had just had a baby.
Dog trotting off with a list, that might have maternity pads or Nipple Shields written on it.
Didn't bother him he was a farm boy.
It had been his job as a boy on the farm to unpack and put away the groceries and he loved to do that, so I let him.
He was good at dress shopping, shoe shopping, and he was patient when I would drag him around all the shops in Wakefield too.
Boots the Chemist, Top Shop, Chelsea girl, he never minded.
Gold was beautiful there and he bought me a rose gold bracelet and I think one for his Mum.
He bought a beautiful set of Luggage for the Happy Bride and Groom and couldn't wait to give it to them.
Back To White Hills,
B fretted about how to approach Aunty Heather about not getting in the car with her again but in the end it was simple. She just handed him the keys and said,
"I thought you might like to drive back, B. "
And he grabbed those keys, like a lifeline and away we went, Aunty sitting in the back. She might have been gaga but she was no fool, saying after minutes,
"I drove abroad last year, in Spain and they drive on the other side of the road over there"
B looked at me and I looked at him and he said in an aside to me,
"Wonder how many deaths there were on the road last year in Spain?"
and that was it, we couldn't look at each other for laughing, and we had to keep it suppressed until we waved to my Aunt from the safety of The Flying Scotsman,
Waving away at her lonely figure and as soon as I was back in Wakefield I rang up my Aunt Gladys and said Auntie Heather was not traveling really well,
mentally and they called an ambulance that day and she was assessed and had dementia, and went into a home where Joy and Gladys could visit.
And ever after it became a story we shared, always funny and always moving
lol Nette x
