|
NEFA
1994.061.01 Transcription
P: Jock Duncan
T: Piping, and Pipie Robertson
S: Iain is fifteen years older than Gordon Duncan. Piping came
to the fore after the war. It was taught in schools. Big Davie,
and James Robertson were the only teachers. He was Iain's first
teacher. He was in the Gordon Highlanders and was captured at Mons.
He was a great composer, piper and judge. They were taught all this
in the army. His music was written out with a quill pen. Iain's
first twelve tunes were written out like that. Robertson died at
about 70. He would not work for the Germans when he was captured.
All this in the Gordon's history.
NEFA
1994.061.02 Transcription
P: Jock Duncan
T: Joining up in World War II
S: Everyone had to join at 18 in his day (1943). JD joined the
Air Force as a wireless operator. His eyes were not good enough,
so he went to France, but never served in the air.
NEFA
1994.061.03 Transcription
P: Jock Duncan
T: Leaving home and hiring
S: First left home before joining the Air Force. Leaving school
at 14 was the best thing, in those days. He moved to a farm building
on his father's farm. JD was treated like any other worker. His
father acted as the bailie and did anything around the farm. There
was another loon too. The young generation has missed this enjoyment
of work. There was not Saturday off. The hired folk, foreman and
loons, were in the chaamer. They played football in the summer evenings.
The minister got you involved in things. They went to dancing classes
in the winter. A man biked from New Deer to Millbrex to teach dancing.
He played the fiddle and taught dances. He was dedicated but lost
his temper occasionally. The went there every year, to meet quines.
NEFA
1994.061.04 Transcription
P: Jock Duncan
T: Dancing lessons
S: The lessons were 6 pence each. At the end of term there was
a ball, which was very well attended. Fiddle, cornet, piano. The
teacher had all these genteel ways of doing the dances, but this
was all forgotten when the general public arrived. The quines were
birled off their feet. The teacher got plenty of drams.
NEFA
1994.061.05 Transcription
P: Jock Duncan
T: The old characters and the siege at Ladysmith
S: There were tremendous characters around. Old Allan was in
the Boer war and at Ladysmith. JD used to stop and see him on his
way from school. The soldiers ate rats at the end of the siege,
but were relieved after a year.
NEFA
1994.061.06 Transcription
P: Jock Duncan
T: Gight games
S: Flourishing till the war.
NEFA
1994.061.07 Transcription
P: Jock Duncan
T: More characters
S: Sandy Phillips, Well o Black Hillock, was another character.
He upended Donald Dinnie at the wrestling, at Mintlaw. He told gory
stories, emphasising them by gesturing with his missing finger.
He said he lost it from Anthrax, but it was probably an exaggeration.
He always dressed in minister's grey. He biked with the Duncans
to the Maud market. He'd visit twice a year and tell stories. Summarises
story about a big man going to war. He told of a man at a thrashin
who got bitten by a rat and died. These were the sort of lurid tale
he would tell.
NEFA
1994.061.08 Transcription
P: Jock Duncan
T: Sandy Phillips and his bizarre stories
S: Sandy Phillips told another one about a man who slipped into
the mill and lost his leg. He always told stories in English, though
he spoke Scotch the rest of the time. He was called out by a doctor
at midnight and attended a man with lockjaw. Bizarre tales. He joined
the TA and they were all called up. Sandy sold his farm. JD saw
him 20 years later in Methlick. SP bought Waterside croft. He had
a waxed moustache. Even then he told the same stories.
NEFA
1994.061.09 Transcription
P: Jock Duncan
T: Characters
S: There must have been dramatic characters before Jock's day.
NEFA
1994.061.10 Transcription
P: Jock Duncan
T: Willie Fowlie
S: Willie Fowlie was very talented. He stayed at home, a
champion hoer. This was a skilful job, because you had to round
the whole drill, leaving the neeps facing towards you. Willie was
Special Constable and he had to deal with 'exuberance' at dances,
a few scraps here and there. He could make furniture and fiddles
too. His nephew, Michael Robertson, studied music in London, Royal
School of Music. He played the viola and showed the Londoners his
uncle-made viola. They were amazed. The second viola is the one
he played in the London Philharmonic. One day, he made his will,
as he often had forebodings. He left the place to his nephew.
NEFA
1994.061.11 Transcription
P: Jock Duncan
T: Concert parties
S: JD used to go round in a concert party with Willie Fowlie.
He watched his nephew play the viola on TV. The Fyvie Loons an Quines
was their concert party. Alec Green (whistle) was one of them. Jean
Duguid, New Pitsligo, was there too. [End of Side A.]
NEFA
1994.061.12 Transcription
P: Jock Duncan
T: More on concert parties
S: The smith in Fyvie retired to Turriff. Alec Green is from
Udny. JD used to go to village halls with the concert party: Mrs.
Chapman (pianist), Jock's sister too. they went around for a couple
of years. There were the Kennethmont Loons an Quines, The Bennygoakers
from Methlick. Robbie ????, good runner and great singer. His daughter
was a great singer too.
NEFA
1994.061.13 Transcription
P: Jock Duncan
T: More on local history
S: Willie Fowlie died at quite a young age, and never went far
from home. The Deer's Hill was full of such men, good athletes,
but they are all gone. Just over the hill from him was the Battle
of Cathen, way back, the Thane o Buchan against some of the Highlanders.
He used to find artefacts and bits of weaponry. His half brother
came home from Canada in the 50s, many went to Canada in those days,
and went down to the shop. His lips moved all the time, silently.
Sometimes he would tell interesting stories about landslides or
the sasquatch in Canada. No one believed him.
NEFA
1994.061.14 Transcription
P: Jock Duncan
T: Peter Elder
S: That man bought the shop in Millbrex and finished his life
there. The shop was rejoined to the farm then. A man named Peter
Elder got the land. JD remembers seeing him on the way back from
school. Elder played the pipes and was very smart. JD learned the
chanter from him, in exchange for a section of honey from Jock's
father. Elder told stories of the Army. When the Second World War
started, all these Territorial Army boys went away. Not Elder, though,
they would not take him. He became janitor of Turriff School, a
big job. His sisters took over the shop and he married a second
time. All that is left is a row of rodden trees that he put in to
shelter the shop, near the hall at Millbrex.
NEFA
1994.061.15 Transcription
P: Jock Duncan
T: Christmas not celebrated. John and Derek Strachan
S: They never held Christmas, except at school. They had a feast
at Hogmanay and had a few presents, just a penknife or something
small. Father made candy. They had drams, but no one was ever drunk.
People would come first footing for days. After the War, things
got out of hand, drink-wise. Derek Strachan, son of John Strachan,
brought an Alpenhorn home from Austria and he would blow it outside
people's windows. He loved music and never slept. Derek never sung,
though his father did. He told good Fyvie tales with Jock's father.
Their talk was wonderful. The dialect is watered down now. Someone
would come by with a stallion once a week, just to see.
NEFA
1994.061.16 Transcription
P: Jock Duncan
T: Other local names
S: Harry Dey, and Donald Slessor, used to travel with stallions.
They got their dinner. Leslie Murison was a terribly crabbit man
who roared at his stallion. Horsy days and horsy boys, they all
got together at fairs and so on. The horseman's word was before
Jock's time, but the old boys referred to it. The caafhoose is the
chaff house, below the feeding bench. It was totally enclosed. Ten
by ten, by five feet high. The chaff blew in there and was used
to feed the beasts. It was a dark hole. That made it more secretive.
You were supposed to proffer a drink, not come empty.
NEFA
1994.061.17 Transcription
P: Jock Duncan
T: Initation rituals for the horseman's word, horsemanship,
and Boothby
S: The boy inside proffered the leg of a sheep to the initiate.
The horsemanship went downhill after the First World War. There
were not many survivors. The Second World War had nothing like the
slaughter of the First. The population was higher early in the century.
Farming was needed in the wars, but it suffered in between. Cheap
grain came from Canada and the US between the wars. The politicians
did not help. Lord Boothby, MP for East Aberdeenshire was a liberal
and did nothing to help matters. Bert Gow, New Deer, lived till
he was 97 or 8. He made a song about 'Boothby on Ma Back'. Corporal
Knox had been in the Army for many years and gave Boothby a great
salute in New Deer. Boothby tipped him. Bert Gow made up songs all
his life; JD wrote it out for him. It was about being behind the
lines. BG joined up young.
NEFA
1994.061.18 Transcription
P: Jock Duncan
T: Bert Gow
S: Bert Gow was a great singer and was good to listen to. He
would come up with Kelman's Concert Party from New Deer. BG dressed
up as a wifie and would sing, 'I am a Widow Baith Handsome and Braw',
and one of his own songs, 'The Washerwife'. No one sings his songs
today, but JD has the words.
back to top
|
