CARRBRIDGE - Memories

by Alasdair Gordon

My furthest back memory, being taken in Dad's pony and trap in the snow from the station at Carrbridge down to Glencharnoch, my father, my mother and I wrapped in travelling rugs. When I was maybe five and Colin would then be two and a half, a photograph was taken outside the cottage at Glencharnoch, of Dad and Mam, Ian, my parents and Colin and me.

It was during a summer when Glencharnoch itself was let to the Drysdale family. The Drysdales used to come up to Carrbridge every year for the summer months and Dad, Mam and Ian would move into the cottage, The cottage was a wooden building with an iron roof, containing a living room with open range, two bedrooms and, off the living room, a large kitchen cum wash-house.

At that time, our summer visits to Carrbridge would have been when we were still living in Aberdeen as we lived in the St. Paul's Church manse in Aberdeen until my father's call to Sandgate Church in Ayr in 1936. With only two bedrooms in the cottage, my father and I slept in a separate wooden building across from the cottage which I think was called "the annex". This contained one good-sized bedroom and a hen-house and, between the two, a stick shed.

In the cottage, my mother and Colin would have one bedroom and Dad, Mam and Ian would have the other. Dad and Mam had three children, my mother Jeanie, Alastair who died in infancy and Ian. Ian had Downs Syndrome.

Carrbridge was my father's first charge as a minister and he came to the manse there from his home town of Aberdeen with his mother, " Granny Aberdeen" who kept manse for him. He had as a member of the Kirk Session Alexander Maclean, the local carpenter and funeral undertaker, also the superintendent of the Sunday School, whose daughter Jeanie my father got to know and love and later married.

My parents were wed in Carrbridge in 1929. My father was by then the minister of St. Paul's Church in Aberdeen. I was born on 13th. July 1931 in the manse at 59 Beechgrove Terrace, Aberdeen, just across from the much later site of the Beechgrove Gardens of television fame. When my father's call to Ayr came in 1936, I remember the day of the removal, sitting on a stool in an emptying room and asking Granny Aberdeen if the men would be taking the bathroom too.

From 1936 in Ayr, we used to spend all our summers in Carrbridge. We stayed there for July and August. My father would take over the Church services and pastoral duties for one of the months, letting the minister off for a holiday. The other month he was able to relax and restore his energies.

In these pre-war years, we travelled from Ayr to Carrbridge by car. This was a day's journey, taking from, say, ten in the morning until late in the afternoon, with frequent stops because of me being travel sick. We would eventually arrive at Carrbridge and be given a warm welcome by Dad, Mam and Ian who, as it was the summer months when the Drysdales were occupying the house, had already moved into the cottage.

Dad died on 18th. February 1939 of coronary thrombosis while working at his workshop in Station Road. He was 64. His death left Mam and Ian on their own in Glencharnoch. Much as my parents tried to get Mam to move down to live with us in Ayr, she was determined not to leave Carrbridge and the house where she had lived all her married life. We continued to spend our summers in the village, now with the addition of Catriona who had been born on 5th. March 1939, just two weeks after Dad's death. But having no petrol due to the war and the Morris 8 being out of action, our journeys north had to be made by train.

The bicycles went with us in the guard's van and a big case of clothing was sent off by train in advance. I recall cycling from St. Enoch Station in Glasgow to Buchanan Street Station, my parents , Colin and I on our bikes and Catriona on a baby basket on my father's bike. On arriving at Carrbridge, we would cycle down Station Road to Glencharnoch. Having spent all my summers in Carrbridge, it became a second home to me.

I got to know the village boys and girls of my own age some of whom I still see when visiting the village now. We used to play together and beat for grouse from 12th. August, taken on by Jock Scott of the Dalrachney Lodge at ten shillings a day. That was hard work in all weathers in the hills above Carrbridge but we volunteered for the job so it couldn't have been too bad.

I remember lying in the heather reading a book while awaiting the whistle for the start of the drive, also sinking knee-deep in bogs from time to time and having to struggle to get out. A lorry, driven by Hughie Mann, took us to the start of the drives, usually up the Nairn road, and came back about four o'clock to return us to the village.

During the war there was a time when Newfoundlanders were posted at the timber yard up the Station Road. They provided the villagers with a lot of entertainment and the older village girls with romance. In the summer , the Newfs., as we called them, displayed their physique and their bravado before ready onlookers by jumping off the Old Bridge into the deep pool. And they played softball, a version of baseball, on the third fairway of the golf-course. They added a bit of glamour to the village, much needed during the austere war years. The Newfs. apart however, Carrbridge was a pretty quiet place, long before the days when the village would roar and vibrate with the passage of heavy vehicles on their way to the nuclear station at Dounray with engines screaming as they struggled up the hotel brae.

The golf-course was where Colin and I spent a lot of time. Twice round the nine holes was equal to a full round and four rounds of nine holes was the norm for us both. With very few others playing, there was nothing to hold you up, apart, that is, from a Clydesdale horse which often took its stance on the third fairway. I'll never forget a low, powerful drive of Colin's hitting the horse right on the bottom. After that, I don't recall seeing the horse again. It had probably moved off to new and more peaceful pastures.

After my father died on 21st. July 1945 the Morris 8 was sold. Future holidays in Carrbridge involved travelling by coach from Glasgow which was cheaper than travelling by train. I remember the lunchtime stop in the journey was at Dunkeld in the Princess Anne Restaurant in the square, always a welcome break. Our arrival in Carrbridge in the late afternoon at the tuckshop opposite Glencharnoch would be greeted by Mam and Ian, seated at the lounge window.

We were always given a warm welcome by them both and it was not long before we were seated at the table in the back living room tucking in to a lovely meal. Mam cooked on an open range which seemed to give the food a distinct and memorable flavour. She had great pride in that range which was black-leaded regularly. In the mornings we woke to the smell of porridge and our breakfasts also included warm rolls which came from Murdo Mackenzie's bakehouse next door.

At the other end of the day, my memory is of the back living room lit by a Tilly paraffin lamp( in the pre-electricity days ) and going upstairs to bed with my lamp casting eerie shadows along the passageways. The house Glencharnoch ( Glen of the Heroes in gaelic ) was built on ground extending to 21 poles feued by the Countess of Seafield to Donald Grant, Carpenter, Auchterteang, near Carrbridge, from 15th. May 1899. It was a condition of the feu that a house was to be built within twelve months from 22nd. October 1898 which meant that the house would have been completed by 22nd. October 1899. Donald Grant lived in the house until he moved to the Nigel Deep Mine, Heidelberg, Transvaal, South Africa.

It was when he was living in Johannesburg that Donald Grant sold the property to John MacLean, Mason, and Alexander MacLean, Carpenter, both of Balnaan, for £437 with effect from 15th. May 1905. On 6th. February 1907, the said John MacLean, then of Docharn, Boat of Garten, sold his half to Mam ( she and Dad then residing at Glencharnoch ) for £300. The transfer of this half share was effective from 11th. November 1906. The signatures of the surname on the deed are interesting. John MacLean signed "McLean" and Alexander MacLean signed "Maclean".

My grandfather Alexander Maclean ( Dad ) died on 18th. February 1939 without leaving a Will. He died at his workshop in the Station Road of coronary thrombosis. His half share of the property passed to his son Ian as nearest and lawful heir in general. My grandmother ( Mam ) died in our house at 10 Park Circus, Ayr on 7th. November 1956. Mam left a Will in terms of which her half of Glencharnoch passed to my mother. Mam had been persuaded to come to stay with us in Ayr a few years earlier as she was no longer fit enough to look after herself and Ian.

The departure from Carrbridge was heart-breaking as it involved Ian having to be admitted to Craig Dunain Hospital in Inverness. Ian died there on 6th. June 1961. Ian had no Will so that his half share of Glencharnoch passed to my mother as his nearest and lawful heir in general. This vested my mother in the whole of the Carrbridge property. On mother's death on 29th. June 1984, Glencharnoch passed under her Will to me, Colin, Catriona and Fiona in equal shares. The four of us have very fond memories of Carrbridge, especially of Glencharnoch.

It was therefore with great reluctance that in 1994 we took the view that unless a substantial sum of money could be raised among us to carry out essential repairs and improvements, its condition would inevitably deteriorate to the point where the timber rot which we knew to exist would soon spread through the whole building. Money of the quantity required was just not available and none of us being residents, we did not qualify for Local Authority grants.

The only alternative was to sell and, after a period of advertising, the property was sold to Mr. and Mrs. Bootle to whom the keys were released on 29th. January 1995. I know that the Bootles have carried out major and tasteful alterations to the house and that they are very happy to be the new owners, even with the knowledge that a murderer's banes are buried in the back garden. Sally and I spent a weekend in Carrbridge in September 1995. I can't deny that, no longer owning a house in the village, Carrbridge did not seem quite the same and we felt just like ordinary tourists.

©2004 Alasdair Gordon

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