The snow was so bad that not only were roads impassable and schools closed, but we lost power, telephones and even when the power was re-connected, we lost TV reception as well when the Durris transmitter partially collapsed. There was no satellite TV in those days, nor cable TV - all we could do was watch videos. There was a video hire shop in Banchory and it couldn't keep up with demand. There were actually queues of people waiting for videos to be returned - there was virtually no stock left in the shop itself, but you could only hire them for a maximum of 24 hours, so at least there was a regular turnover.
I can't remember exactly who said it - and when - but it wasn't too long in to our stay in Banchory when the cry went up - "I want to go home, Dad!" Not to worry, everyone soon learned the upsides of all this chaos - no school, for one. Every morning, we would all listen anxiously to the list of school closures on NorthSound Radio - much rejoicing when it came to the "B's" and Banchory Primary School was announced.
One other positive point was the temporary ski slope created just across the road at the 3rd hole on the golf course - great for sledging for kids - and parents too!
I remember us all cuddling up in front of the fire in sleeping bags and under duvets, watching videos on our little TV, perched on the extended fireplace. Here's a couple of reminders of how the house used to look then:
 |
| Remember the room divider and the potty that the cheeky chappy is sitting on? |
One other quote from those early days in Banchory that still rings in my ears came from 10 year old Lucy, for whom, to be fair, this was already her 4th house - she may not have remembered Chryston, but she was very happy in Broxbourne with her little pals Annie & Sasha, and also seemed well settled in Balerno, when we uprooted her again by moving further North. She told me - "I don't care where your job takes you next, Dad, but I'm not leaving here now!" Oh, the irony of it now.
When the snows finally melted, moving in to spring, and we managed to get out and about again, everyone soon seemed to make friends OK - especially with the Duncan family, who were still living in number 2 for a while after we arrived. This is how Arbor Court would have looked in those early days - both front and rear:
 |
| Note sky blue Sierra, red Datsun Cherry and Jo on balcony |
Our other neighbours from the early days were the Rocks in number 6, the Parrs in 5, the infamous Nicols in 3 and the Boags in number one. The Rocks were OK, but they weren't around too long after we arrived. The Parrs - Denis and Morag - had to stay in Arbor Court a bit longer than they wanted. They put their house on the market just as the oil price collapsed and there was for the first - and only - time so far, a temporary blip in the housing market. It didn't last long really but the Parrs refused to drop their price as the market slid down and, as a result, their house didn't sell for ages - even after the market picked up again.
The Boags in number 1 were regarded as the moral guardians/policemen of the street - or, at least, he was. I soon learned not to cross him. One very small example came one day when I was reversing out of the street. I didn't want to reverse all the way to the main road, so I swung the rear of my car partially up the Boags drive, turned, and then headed off to the village. When I returned, there was a large dustbin at the end of his drive, making sure I couldn't repeat my earlier manoeuvre. Point taken.
Now the Nicols in number 3 were something else - they could be as nice as ninepence or the neighbours from hell. The Dad - Geoff - was one of the early offshore workers who was sent to exotic locations around the globe - and paid megabucks for his trouble. Money was spent just as fast as it was earned - no, take that back - it went even faster. He was away most of the time, of course, and the regime offshore and overseas was very strict when it came to alcohol - zero tolerance - but, boy, did he make up for it when he came home.
His wife, Barbara, wasn't exactly a recluse when he was away either. House parties were a regular feature - and their kids joined in too. Young Brett was only ages with our Lucy but he smoked and drank with the best of them. Taxis came and went with astonishing frequency at all hours of the day and night. They didn't keep a car but had an account with the local taxi firm instead - and the monthly bill was enormous.
They were always nice to us when we saw them - I guess they didn't mean any harm, but there was one incident that really shook Jo and I. We were walking up our driveway, heading in to our house, when up pulls yet another taxi and out rolls Geoff. It was the middle of the day and we didn't think anything of it when he came over and gestured that he'd like to hold baby Ross. Like a fool, I handed him over and the combination of the weight of Ross, the slope of the driveway and the alcohol Geoff had consumed, led to him spinning and falling. It was like a slow motion nightmare scene and it was, of course, Ross' head that hit the ground first. We were mortified. I quickly picked up Ross and handed him to Jo, who rushed in to the house, in bits.
Forbes, and Margaret Duncan in particular, in number 2 became good friends and their children and ours got along really well - especially Kelly, seen here dressed to kill, with Ruth and Susan Duncan:
Soon, however, the last house in Arbor Court was sold and the Duncans had to move out. That was bad news for Kelly and Jo, but the new neighbours, Arthur and Pat Roberts, had a son called Graham who was ages with Gary and they became good friends.
We were astonished to find out that, thinking we were coming to a small country town, Banchory Primary School actually had Scotland's largest roll call at the time - something like 850, I think - and there's the adjacent Academy on top of that.
At work, although the first few months at Clipper Seafoods had gone well, in a slightly eerie recall of events at Nuclear Enterprises in Edinburgh some 4 years before, suddenly all was not well with the Parent company Unigate PLC. Our first awareness of this came when the local management at Clipper saw an opportunity to acquire some relatively cheap raw materials and build up stocks whilst they could. Unigate said no and this was the first inkling we had of cash flow problems at one of the UK's major quoted companies.
This initial clash led to further battles over how to run a company in the fish business, but the real reason became all too clear when eventually Unigate announced they were putting Clipper Seafoods up for sale - along with a whole raft of other businesses, from turkey producers through chickens and meat. They were returning to their core business of milk and dairy products.
Now, the Clark family had owned Clipper Seafoods before - indeed they set it up and then sold it to Unigate less than 3 years ago, but here they were being presented with an opportunity to buy it back - cheaply. Now, at this early stage, I didn't really know the Clarks all that well and Unigate, like Thorn EMI - and for that matter, Fischer too - did at least offer me a parachute move elsewhere - but, again, having just moved the family up, I had no desire to go back down south again, so I had to consider what options I was likely to have.
We'd barely had time to settle and get to know the area, and Lucy's words were still ringing in my ears, so when Dr. Clark approached me and said he was going to buy the business back and he wanted me to stay and be a key player in his new team, I was obviously interested. There was then a bit of a curve ball thrown when it transpired that there was another bidder for Clipper Seafoods - and it was from the surprise source of a triumvirate consisting of Sales Director, Bill Hazeldean, his sidekick and Production Manager Ron Porteous and, surprise, surprise, Michael Clark, the younger son of Dr. Clark. So it was Father v. Son!
Daggers were drawn, but the opposition team shot themselves in the foot when they only bid for part of the business - they didn't want to know about the Cold Store or the Trading activities, whereas Dr. Clark was offering to take it all, lock, stock and barrel, off Unigate's hands.
As a result of this schism, I was suddenly the key player and most Senior Manager in Dr. Clark's team and I got involved in all the negotiations with Unigate and the lawyers, working in tandem with Henry Cameron, the Doc's friend and lawyer. It all took several months, but it was finally wrapped up by late Summer, 1984.
The three who had tried to break away and opposed the Doc's plans were ostracised for a few months but were slowly brought back in to the fold - he was never going to leave his son out, although he probably wanted to show him who was still the Boss.
The Doc, as everyone called him, was a colourful, larger than life character and well-kent throughout the fishing and seafood industry, both locally and nationally. He had been a Director of Christian Salvesen, that well-known Scottish business that had its roots in Norway and the whaling industry, but has moved on considerably since then. By coincidence, Salvesen's Chairman was one Maxwell Harper Gow, father of Eric, who had initially been my boss at Nuclear Enterprises. Max and the Doc got on OK generally in those days, although there was a bit of a clash of styles, with the Doc's lifestyle not in tune with the conservative, very presbyterian ethos of most of the Salvesen Board. They parted ways in the mid-70's and the Doc, together with his 2 "boys", Francis and Michael, plus a few others, then started Clipper Seafoods.
I always compare and contrast the Doc and Kinney Johnson, my former boss at Fischer Ultrasound. Kinney could talk the talk and was a very likeable and personable man, but could he walk the walk? - Definitely not - a lot of it was hot air, as proven by the way his business went down. By contrast, the Doc was big, bold and brassy and wasn't everyone's cup of tea, but he delivered - and that's why I stayed - and have now been in the family businesses for almost 30 years.
Anyway, my reward for getting the deal with Unigate completed was a week's holiday in Mallorca during the October "tattie holidays", as they (still) call them in the North East. It was a pleasant enough break although it wasn't exactly our best ever holiday. The weather wasn't fabulous and our hotel not exactly the best either, with a lot of building works going on in adjacent hotels. Was this the holiday when Kelly would eat nothing but grapes and chips at the hotel buffet? Here's a distant shot taken on that holiday:
Ross had just turned one when we were in Mallorca and Kelly had her 5th birthday a few months earlier:
.jpg)
Lucy had obviously taken on the role of photographer by now. Kelly always tried to look sweet and innocent:
 |
| "Who, me?" |
 |
| Richard looks a bit happier than Jan! No doubt the red terror (John) was up to his tricks behind. |
My first senior recruit for Clipper Seafoods was John McWhinnie, who was from Motherwell and had been working at British Steel, Ravenscraig then Tannoy. John stayed for a little while after the buy-back from Unigate but I don't think the job really interested him and soon he was off to pastures new - but not before he and I put our names down for membership of Banchory Golf Club. It was some years before we could get full membership of the club as there was a huge waiting list in those days, but we were able to get season tickets which allowed us restricted play of the course - but not competitions. So it was that we came to join Torphins Golf club and I was able to play for my first ever official handicap - 27 it was.
I also discovered that I could get in to Seaforth Sports Club down in the harbour area, not far from Clipper, at lunchtimes and they had squash courts. Before long, I was invited to play in the Seaforth team in the Grampian Squash Leagues. The team were given maroon tracksuits to wear and I remember keeping mine for years afterwards - especially the bottom half. They were made of some horrible nylon-y type material - I suspect Jo eventually threw them out.
By this time, I had joined Banchory Squash Club as well, and I could play there in the evenings, but I had no thoughts of playing in their teams - they all seemed too good for me at the time. I enjoyed my friendly mini-league games - even playing a few at the crack of dawn before heading off to work.
Our second winter in Banchory wasn't half as bad as the first - thank goodness. Here, I think, is a Christmas Day scene from that year:
Ross' car was from the Early Learning Centre, I believe, but not sure about the source of Kelly's Doll's House behind - it doesn't look like one of my Dad's creations - although he had built one years before for Lucy.
At work, early in 1985 a good business opportunity came along when Unilever, the company behind thousands of famous international brands, put up their fish business, MacFisheries for sale. When we were young, there was a MacFisheries shop in virtually every town in the UK. Their first store was in Richmond in 1919 - and, as you can see, it wasn't just fish they sold in those days:
There's an interesting web site on the whole history of MacFisheries, prior to 1985 - check it out here: http://www.macfisheries.co.uk/
Anyway, by 1985 they had closed all their High St. shops and virtually all that remained was their main fish processing factory in Fraserburgh - and that was what the Clark family bought - for the nominal sum of £1m., but the way the deal was structured, it really didn't cost them anything. Obviously, the business was losing money and this was reflected in the price paid, and our principal concern would be to turn this round as soon as possible.
This acquisition also afforded an opportunity to bring the three "rebels" fully back in to the fold and to give them a major project to handle. Fraserburgh was somewhere I had never been before - it seemed like the back of beyond, even although it was only 40 odd miles north of Aberdeen - but it was a town trapped in time, I felt - it was so different from the international feel of Aberdeen, the "Oil Capital of Europe".
Initially, when I went there, it was always an overnight stay - very different from nowadays when I commute there once or twice a week. We stayed at first in the now defunct Alexandra Hotel in the town itself, but soon realised walls have ears and everyone was lugging in to every conversation we had. After all, we were perceived as the big city slickers who had come to town on a mission to make the business profitable again, and there were well over 500 jobs resting on what we decided. MacFisheries was the biggest employer in a town with a population of 12,000.
Soon, we realised we had to move and our next port of call was the Tufted Duck (http://www.tuftedduckhotel.co.uk/) in St. Combs where we could talk a bit more freely we felt.
The acquisition was completed on 1st March, 1985 and so much of that spring and summer was spent in Fraserburgh. Back in Banchory, the Tor-na-Coille Hotel, adjacent to Arbor Court, was also undergoing a change of ownership - and one that would have big repercussions for my social life in later years. Roxanne Sloane (as she then was) was now in charge.
It was, I think, that same year when Forbes Duncan, our former neighbour at number 2 and sales agent for the Arbor Court houses, approached me for some help on a Business Plan he was writing for a new project for the Duncan family - one that was planned to get them back on the road to recovering their prominent position as Banchory's number one family shopkeepers. Forbes had noticed the success of Sterling of Tillicoultry (http://www.sterlingfurniture.co.uk/), who advertised their large furniture store on TV, and Forbes was planning a similar venture for Duncan's of Banchory.
I did what I could to help Forbes prepare his plan, but he only let me see part of it, and never really shared the full picture with me - he was a little coy about some of the financial plans and I was giving advice blind really - not ideal. What I didn't say to him was what I, and most others, including, crucially, his bankers, thought - and that was that the plan was too grand and expansionist for the time and especially for a family with a dodgy financial past.
Forbes could be seen drinking heavily at most bars in the town about then - especially the golf club - and when he was finally turned down by the bank for the last time, that was really the beginning of the end for him. I can't remember how much later it was when the news came that he'd taken his life, but all I could remember thinking was what a tragedy it was for Margaret and the kids.
On a happier note, I recall us attending a Family Picnic at Blairs College that summer. Until 1986, Blairs (http://blairsaberdeen.co.uk/) was, quote: "Scotland's junior seminary for boys and young men studying for the Roman Catholic priesthood."
Of course, more recently the news has come out that the disgraced Cardinal Keith O'Brien was up to no good at that very same place about that time. Anyway, it didn't spoil our nice day out there:
So, I think that's enough for now - more or less up to 1985.
No comments:
Post a Comment