Turra Interviewees to the Fore

Turriff Heritage Society were among the first to get going on the Project, so here are transcripts of the extracts from their interviews:

Ian Sandison - Strichen's finest export remembers what happened when he had a TB scare:

IS – An’ m’father hid been on the proper shift tae be at hame, an’ he said ‘Fit’s ‘at?’ An’ I said ‘Ach, something for an x-ray,’ ‘Ye nae gettin’ daen?’, ‘No,’ An’ it was the best advice I ivver got because it turned oot I hid a shadow on the lung, right? So it ended up I hid tae ging an’ be verified or confirmed on a big x-ray, and I mind waa’kin’ doon King Street, aged seventeen and a half, thinkin’ that the sky wiz gaun tae hit ma heid… I wiz telt I hid tae stop workin’, go home, and go straight tae hospital, Strichen wiz a tuberculosis hospital at that time. So the story went roon Strichen of course that I wiz gaun tae be deid in three wiks, an’ ‘at wiz… ‘at wid hae been 1952 or ’53, an’ I’m still abeen the sod yet!

HT – Yes!

Nurse Mary Webster - Our favourite District Nurse recalls a particularly LARGE delivery!:

MW - This lady … it wis in the flax, they all used to come in tents, ye know, and just … in the fields. I got a call one night, Fisherford, ye know, Miss Wood had the farm, and she phoned and said this folk had arrived and the mother was in labour. I says, oh, for goodness sake! I says ‘Oh well, I have delivered in that way before,’ an’ I said, ‘no’, and I went out an’aa the grannies and aathing, and I said ‘Clear out! Get out of the way altogether!’ So I saw Miss Wood, an’ we went in, an’ I got two trestles, in the byre, two trestles, an’ a door, an’ I built it up wi’ straw and I put clean sheets over it, and filled the … the cattle fed out of it,

IS – The hake?

MW - Aye, so, I filled it wi’ straw, because I had to get somewhere for the baby. Well, I managed to deliver her, and that baby … it was a great big strong woman, an’ she had a thirteen pound baby! A great big woman, my hair wiz jist about stan’in’ on end! I said to the woman, ‘Ye know, ‘iss is a terrible way t’have yer baby, why didn’t ye make arrangements?’ ‘Oh, we’ve been moving on,’ ‘Well, but,’ I says, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with ye,’ I says, ‘Ye’ve landed me in the soup,’ ‘Oh, but ye know Christ was born in a manager,’ I says ‘Aye, but it was a clean ane!’

Louis Cameron - Was it the soup or the girl that our bothy loon favoured most?:

LC – Eence upon a day the threshin’ lads hid a lang wye tae cairry the strae fae the barn, it wis aa made intae winlans, aye, it wis aa made intae winlans, but I learned tae mak a winlan right enough, tae please ma kitchie deem ye see! ‘At wis the great thing aboot it.

PMc – Mm-hm, and ye were quite friendly wi her were ye?

LC – I wis, oh, I wis! Oh aye, tell ye this, the broth aye tasted sweeter aifter I’d been oot wi the kitchie deem, am tellin’ ye that!

PMc – Mm-hm, and what was her name?

LC – Ken iss, a’ve forgotten!

Louis, Mary and their friend Jimmy Dick, who was also interviewed, outside Abbeyfield House in Turriff, 2005.