Scoop Taylor Blog.

What the hell is a blog? 

Well I don't really know or much care but its got 'log' in the name and we all know what a log is don't we? (no not a stick for the fire or an ancient irreplaceable bit of Caledonian forest floated down the glorious Spey umpteen generations ago to fill the coffers of the English landowners to quench Britains and Europes thirst for cheap Scots Pine.... IKEA stylee...whoops rant over, sorry thats Jock Russel's influence god bless him)

No think Captains Log, think diary, think thoughts written down, updates, flashbacks, news, updates etc. Thats a (b)log, that what I think anyway.

Well why not put these reminiscences on the Scoop Taylor Archive on Facebook? 

Well FB restrict the numbers of words that can be used on a post and if you want to tell a story then FB is very limited,....simples!! so read on fellow Badenochites.

I was round at my sister Brendas place tonight, ( Cockfosters/Hadley Wood North London). Giz Gilligan was there, Giz's mum my sister Sandra was there, Nick, Brendas other half was there and we were talking about Scoop.

Well we realise we never really understood the old man, never really appreciated him or clicked what was driving him to do what he did, as I was trying unsuccessfully to nod off for the night I thought I'll get up and crystallize some thoughts, or at least try to before its too late. (who really knows or truthfully tries to know their parents? I'm 52 and have just started to try)

Simple fact was he seemed to know that everything happening around him in his community was a one time thing, unique, irreplaceable, fragile and very very quickly gone. What happened on a snowy Monday was different to the following Friday's thaw. People like the weather, are fickle are they not?.

Yes of course he was a journalist, of course he looked for news but why so hungrily? There was shoddy money in it, our council house and a mini-clubman with a broken heater attest to that.

Who in their right mind wants to drive through the middle of a Drumochter blizzard to take pictures when you could be in front of a cosy Milton Park coal fire watching the Alexander Brothers, The Corries or Celtic or Rangers on a grainy black and white TV gubbing who-ever on Scotsports whilst tucking into a steak pie or buttery and bacon?

Well the answer I realise now is simple. 

Dad was a butcher for the greater part of his life and he really really (badly) wanted to be a writer and photographer..not a butcher. Thats pretty much it in a nutshell.

Now if you've been a butcher since aged thirteen, forced to leave school to work in the family shop, denied your vocation or calling, it can set up a thirst, a hunger, an ambition, well he had the hunger in spades, and I reckon he had the hump with his past and thats why he was prepared to pile out of the house on a dark freezing cold night to go and check out an event. Mostly it wasn't national news, it wasn't big news and the vast majority of it was not particularly sexy as they say today. But dad was actually living his dream as a photographer and journalist and to him it was all big news, it was all sexy and his appetite for any event no matter how insignificant was considerable, his commitment was total, almost obsessional.

When he finally chucked it in as the co-op butcher in Kingussie (actually sacked for apparently being insubordinate to a jobsworth from lower down the High Street who he held in little regard), he was thus set on the road to his ambition.

We left the tied house in Kingussie and thankfully got a house in Milton Park Aviemore. To make ends meet he worked part-time as a butcher in the Aviemore Centre below the Pinewood Bar and Restaurant and also started trying hard to sell stories to the press the rest of the week.

He didn't go out to work at the Pinewood one morning and I said worriedly to my mum ' Is dad no well again?' (he was diabetic and prone to diabetic comas which was not a pleasant sight) and she said 'no he's fine, he's a journalist full-time from today whatever that means, god help us all'.

Sharp intake of breath from 14 year old Jumbo......next post soon.

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Jumbo.

Scoop Taylor Reunion August 2011

There is definite interest in this event taking place and almost 100 people have said there is a strong chance they will attend and its still 12 months away!

Personally I am quite excited by all this.

Apparently there are two people on the Scoop page who have not met for 50 years!!! and have made a date for August 2011 at the reunion as a result of re-connecting on the Scoop pages. Blimey the power of photographs, dad would have been totally blown away.

I have made a provisional booking with the Duke Of Gordon in Kingussie for the upstairs ballroom which can hold up to 150 people. It looks from the feedback I've had that there is a fair chance we can fill it.

The Duke Of Gordon has a lot of resonance with me as we stopped there when we came from Buckie to check Kingussie out when dad got the butchers job. I remember having a packet of crisps and putting a few into the concrete lions mouths outside the Duke. When we finally arrived in Kingussie to live some months later I belted over the Gynack bridge to see if my crisps were still there!! (nope gone much disappointment)

Kingsford House above the co-op butchers and bakers then became our home and very happy it was too. I got obsessed with shinty, the Spey and the amazing countryside which was so different from the east coast landscape around Buckie.

I Wandered for hours up the Gynack to the golf course and even further to the loch at the back of the course and to the Spey in the other direction of which more memories will I'm sure return, watch this space.
Jumbo.

View toward Newtonmore over the Gynack Bridge from the front bedroom at Kingsford House.

Kingussie petrol station opposite the Duke.

Kingussie Festival

Mairi Filshie outside the school. I distinctly remember Mairi coming into Donnie Macdonalds maths class excitedly telling me ' Jumbo your dad just took pictures of me outside!' Man I had my first ever crush on Mairi and was too much of a wimp to do anything about it, shit bugger damn, I thought I'd be young forever!!!

Marcus White outside the Duke.

Robbie "DOO'

what a great photo!!