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.
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Jumbo.
i have just blubbed for an hour, but how fantastic of you to do this,what a humble background, and you have encapsulated Dad story so well,god I miss him even more now, zillions of questions | want to ask him .
ReplyDeleteNon of us realised then what an important part in social history he was capturing.
I think back some of his tantrums ,no wonder what a hellish life he had,but he wasnt going to let hold him back.nowt more i can say just now, but well done once more.
Thanks Mags, the poor bastard struggled so much to do what he was doing. Half the time the heating in the mini never worked, his blood sugar would run low during a trip out and he'd get ill,he'd get soaked, hungry and with absolutely no recognition and precious little money, and sometimes get the piss taken out of him behind his back for being Scoop. I wish I had realised, I could at least have boiled the kettle and made him a piece. I was a spoilt teenage brat half the time.He really did so much in isolation, but as I said in the blog he loved doing his work, its all he ever wanted so we should be thankful for that.
ReplyDeleteI used to be hurt when I heard Kingussie folk taking the pee out of Scoop.
ReplyDeleteHe didnt want a fuss made of him at all, he was doing what he wanted to do all his live , just as you said it.
He was Dux at Buckie high but never got use his brains because he was expected as all lads to follow in the family footsteps and take over from his Dad at the shop doon the brae
( Buckpool), then they expanded and took on the top shop ,all went well he worked his socks off at the shop until his brother Willie stared to rip the business off to fuel his drinking habits.
I was with him the day he was made bankrupt and we both locked up the shop and had a long quiet walk back to 22 Yuill Avenue.How he kept his family fed and warm in the next 12 months is a story so heartbreaking, but we never suffered.
Another bog for that one perhaps.
Aye Jim you would be proud o'yer loon the day !
what drove dad? a need , a desire to put to use his brains, he knew he could achieve more that he was achieveing but with 7 snotty nosed bairns around him, and two brothers that were drinking the business dry, he just kept his head held high, as a local business man he had to, BUT what was going through his head, thats another of the zillions of questions I want to ask him.
ReplyDeleteWe were well off by the standards of the late 50's in Buckie, Ok a cooncil hoose, but everybody lived in a cooncil hoose. . . . didnt they . . .?? No nanny Taylor didnt ?
We didnt stay well off for long ,but I have cosy memories of that short period of time.
Did dad aspire to buy his own home ??? Probably
All his passion for journalism must have been hidden so deep, I don't think he bore any grudges against notbeing able to chase his dream while he was young, just get on with it maybe was his motto.
dad help the North Kirk in many ways, as a kirk elder should.
One Xmas i was in the nativity play at the kirk, not sure why I got the role of a tree !!! Dad wasthe director, and to sit back and watch a man I knew as dad , do what he did was strange, I had never seen him in another role.
Violets are Blooming in Piccardy , a song that we all sung at the play still conjours up a picture of dad running on stage with a bunch of flowers in his hand , before curtain up because the lead female had forgotten her bunches of Violets, I seem to remmebr they were plastic things ,that smelt god awful. I reckon i must have been about 10 at this time.
Any way thats another view of Scoop.more later
John his first son born after 5 girls, was the apple of his eye,naturally.
ReplyDeleteJohn must have about 4 when dad took him to watch the local football teams play at the public park in Buckie,during the game the ball was kicked out of touch and landed right by Dad and John,Dad encouraged John to kick the ball back on the pitch much to the annoyance of the teams , as it took forever for John to kick it !
Thats why you became goalie John!
Aaahhhh ! the good old Buckie holiday
ReplyDelete( local holiday )
mid 1950's dad piled us all into the back of his butchers van and off we went to Elgin and in particular Coopers Park,but well before getting to Elgin ,maybe as far as Buckpool , I would suffer from terrible travel sickness couple that with the smell from the butchers van, not a good concotion.
Now dad was a great lover of cologne and on the very rare occassion he would buy some 1471 eau de cologne , and on several occassions after I had thrown up dad would get me to sniff his hanky all the way into Elgin.Sorted. I was never travel sick on the way home ,because we were so knackered we all fell asleep.
Dad would hire a boat and do the rowing around the pond in Coopers park , with us bairns and mum taking it in turns to get a wee shot.
I can remember us having a sandwich in the park, so that must have been our very own kind of "picnic",he would then take us to the riuns of the castle linked to the Wolf of Badenoch ,where he would make us count all the steps to the top. Mum would stand outside at the bottom having a fag.Claiming she didnt like hieghts,this is a true fact I found out much lter in life.
Then to end the day off we would get fish and chips and eat them in the park, probably it was two fish suppers between us all.!!
ON the way home there was the obligatory stop in Llanbryde where us wee ones would be left in the van whilst mum and dad went into the the wee pub on the corner, must have been for maybe 30 mins ,but at times felt longer especially if a big sister was picking on you.
I can rember this treat only happening once or twice ,but it still left me with good memories.
In our time of being comfy or well off or whatever you called it,dad decided to get a local Jock Thain to come and tame our unruly garden at 22,Dad was never a gardener or handy man or anything to with DIY.
ReplyDeleteSo Jock came and tamed the garden and planted lots and lots of vegetables.He tended the garden most weeks and we lived off the spoils.
On Sundays whilst we were all at Church /Sunday School,mum was at home with the baby of the time and getting Sunday dinner ready for us all.
We would all walk to the North Kirk, berets on at a jaunty angle ,Clarks school shoes shone like the silvery moonbecause dad had polished them that very morning,shiny shoes were a badge of your decent upbringing, and dad in his best pin stripe suit,we were really part of the business mans community ,here at the kirk we had our own pew on the right handside half way down the isle.Werent we posh ???Mid way thro the morning service the youngsters we be chaperoened off to Sunday school ,which was held in the church hall at the back of the church.This heralded 11 am, and by 11.30 am it was al over,father collected us and off we trooped back up High Street,lft into Well raod and right into Yuill Avenue.The comfort that I get from that mental picture is one of indescribable pleasure, we were so happy, so content,and wanted for nothing,not even our parenst love,because at this time in our life we got it in anbundance.OK they never told us they loved us ,but their actions spoke a thousand words and there was I cocooned in their arms. I didnt give a shit,but i also didn't know what was ahead of us.
Phew, keep it coming, I am on a steep learning curve!!
ReplyDeleteone cold, cold frosty morning in January,many moons ago, I was woken with a loud bang on the door and a commotion in the lobby at 22.
ReplyDeletetraipsing down the stairs on the cold linoeleum,i saw dad talking to Dr Ramsay our GP.
The great news was Lil had delivered her 6th child in Aberdeen Maternity and low and behold it was the first son John!!!!
.I remember standing shivering in the lobby, no central heating ,sold cold lino floors with the odd rug here and there.One coal fire for the whole house which was in the sitting room ,and this had gone out overnight,dad didnt have time to re light it,to get it warm for us bairns to come down to.I had been farmed out that week to Uncle Willies and Auntie Beths in Buckpool as mum was taken into Aberdeen Maternity early,Auntie Jess stayed at 22 to look after the rest of us.For no rhyme or reason I was sent back to 22 ( well there may have been a reason but i can't remeber it) I just remember walking back up Yuill Aenue on the Saturday.
dad then said to me get dressed and take the bike over to Buckpool and tell Uncle Ernie and Auntie Vi the good news.That was the first I knew about you John !!!!!!!
Sometime in the very early 60's the family business had closed down, due to bankruptcy,dad had his family to keep fed and warm ,how was he going to do this ? I dont know what went through his and mums mind at the time, the dole wasnt an option for a well respcted local family.
ReplyDeleteHe got a job on board the Surmount as a cook.The Surmount being a fishing boat that belonged to neighbours Zander and George Jappy who lived at 15 Yuill Avenue.Off dad went one Monday morning and a fortnight later we see this bearded man turning the corner from Well Road into Yuill Avenue,now this man looked as though he was drunk (dad didnt drink at this time )in fact he still had his sealegs and hadnt shaved for two weeks while at sea.It was Dad coming home from his first and last fishing trip.Apparantley he had been sea sick most of the trip but still managed to cook for the crew.
But vowed and ddeclared he would not go back to sea.Some time later when the older ones came home from shool at lunch time and asked what was for dinner he told us it was Surmount Soup, a real concotion of mince ,veg and any thing el;se dad could put his hands on to make this concotion, I rember it had mealy pudding and eggs in it !!!
We never had Surmount soup again, but that was dad at his best keeping us all fed and warm with the little bit of food he could put his hands on.
Around the same time there was no coal for the fire and very little wood,but dad being the mastermind of the family took it upon himself to go down to Well Road in the dark ,there had been numerous prefabs being torn down ,and of course there would have been material in the rubble ready for burning .That night and for several more nights we had substanial fires which of course heated the water,which also enabled us to bathe all thanks to the council who had left wood etc etc just lying on the site after the demolition.
When dad came home from work ,mum had to make sure us all kids had had their tea,dad used to like to sit at the table in the kitchen on his own,his usual seat was with his back to the sink,and usually had the youngest of us on his knee.I guess that was so mum could cook and serve up his dinner in peace.I remember dad allowed me to sit next to him one night, nobody else at the table,now I did feel spoilt then.
ReplyDeleteWe used to eat well in those days, dad would take home whatever was left over in the shop and we had that for either dinner that night or lunch next day,but there several ocassions when that didnt happen - - - CHRISTMAS. Dad being the softy he was gave away our turkey on several Christmas' eve,to fisherwoman who hadnt organised themselves,a sob story or whatever the reason was dad would give them our bird,I remember one Christmas in particular all we had was a steak pie,not even a scrawny chicken ,but a steak pie.Mother was furious,I can still hear them arguing even now !!!! merry Christams dad!