Duncan Harley

Fatal aircraft crashes, often due to accidents in training, were fairly common in wartime.  Places such as Ballater, Aboyne and Logie Coldstone bear witness to the carnage.  In the October of 1943 for example, a Bristol Blenheim of 526 Fighter Squadron based at Inverness crashed on high ground at Morven. Both aircrew died. The pilot, a Welshman, was recorded as Flight Sergeant Douglas Evans and his wireless operator/air-gunner was named as Flight Sergeant Charles Baden from Derby. Another crash, this time of a Wellington bomber on a training mission out of Lossiemouth, occurred in 1942 high up in the hills behind Braemar. A gamekeeper out checking the deer herd at Glen Cluny eventually spotted the tail of the downed aeroplane sticking out of deep snow and alerted the local policeman. The eight aircrew had lain undiscovered for weeks and consisted mainly of New Zealander, Australian and American servicemen in training. Eventually, some 45 years after the tragedy, one o...

Canon make some splendid camera equipment and I have to own-up as an aficionado of the brand. I have owned and used quite a few of the products including a couple of high-end camera bodies plus several high-end lenses – or bits of glass, as they are often referred to in the trade. A couple of 5D’s and a more than a few of those splendidly red-ringed ‘professional’ lenses made up my collection until quite recently when, in a fit of poverty, I decided to sell some surplus. The 5D Mk2 went to the hammer first and fetched a tidy sum. It had been, in the words of my partner Janice, a good friend, and it was hard to let go of it. But, at least the new owner – somewhere in Wiltshire as I recall – will get good use of it. I mean, who really needs two big full-frame cameras anyway. I paraded round a few shows and events with two 5D’s wrapped around my neck and all I got was that one golden shot plus a big piece of neck-ache. I mean, why would you bother. Then the 300mm telepho...

Alongside the Art Deco buildings - one an open air pool, the second a splendidly new curry house aptly named 'Carron to Mumbai' - Stonehaven has quite a lot going for it. With Dunnottar just around the headland and two of Scotland’s most famous chippers – one wins accolades for best battered fish in Scotland-shire, while another deep fries chocolate bars to order ... what’s not to like about the place. I gave the seaside town a good few mentions in my Our Town Leopard Magazine articles. Robert Burns, the Raedykes Mons Graupius connection and that Highland Boundary Fault made it onto the pages of the now sadly defunct periodical. Hitler’s Bunker, fresh seafood, fine dining and New-Year arson inhabited the pages. And, inevitably some war history made it into print in my A-Z of Curious Aberdeenshire book as well. We, Janice and I, had been checking out the Cowie Stop Line. In case you’ve never heard of it, it’s a largely forgotten part of the Stonehaven history. ...

Richard Morrison writes in today’s Times in Scotland about how the about to be wed royal couple can learn a thing or two from long dead poet Philip Larkin. Seemingly the Windsor wedding day falls on Whit Saturday and the theory, at least, suggests that the wearing of white is appropriate for the Pentecostal weekend. Larkin’s take on the state of marriage is, he writes, ‘really, a meditation on marriage and what lies ahead for the travelling couples’. As the wedding train finally arrives at its destination Larkin, always the pessimist perhaps, writes gloomily about ‘a sense of falling, like an arrow shower, sent out of sight, somewhere becoming rain.’ As for Whit Saturday. Well, Google directs searchers to White Saturday which is seemingly the day after Black Friday which is the day when stores hike up prices to a level to which only the rich can aspire. Google aside, Richard suggests that the church festival of Whit Saturday was in fact well known in those heady pre-Google days ...