Duncan Harley

The planned township of Macduff has a relatively short history. As recently as 1759 the rent rolls for the settlement, known then as Down or Doune, recorded just 34 tenancies along with 400 inhabitants who subsisted through crofting and fishing from what was probably a very basic harbour. Today’s population is around 3850.  Burgh status came in 1783 and in that year, the first town council sat down to deliberate on the improvement of the burgh. Markets were licenced, vagrants were ostracised and residents forbidden to throw excrement and general rubbish onto to the streets. The Earls of Fife invested heavily in the town and encouraged improvements in agricultural practices. They clearly understood the potential of exploiting the natural resources of the sea and began harbour improvements in the 1760s. The harbour has been upgraded at regular intervals up to the present day, with ownership passing from James Duff, the second Earl of Fife, to the town council on March 1 1897, ...

Months ago, at least it seems like it, I was sent a copy of  ‘Hotels of the Stars’ by Tessa Williams. Described in glowing terms as featuring ‘A-list Haunts and Hideaways’ the book, amongst several others sat amongst my pile of promised reviews.  Inevitably some never make it to the top of that pile and kindness occasionally precludes that promised review. In the case of Tessa’s tome, a bit of illness got in the way and now that I am much better, I thought it timely to pen a few words. A journalist by trade, Tessa is no stranger to the content having spent a portion of her life penning for the likes of Marie Claire, Elle and Vogue. There are no Holiday Inn’s or Travelodge’s here and nor should there be. With an introduction by Albert Roux this book reveals the inner workings of that cosseted world of the super-rich and those super-famous-folk who inhabit the likes of London’s Dorchester, Fort William’s Inverlochy Castle and L’Hotel Paris. Raffles, The Chelsea Hote...

The play 'Doorways in Drumorty' was first aired in 2010 and is loosely based on the writings of a Strichen lass by the name of Lorna Moon who made it big in Hollywood. Alongside her one published novel Dark Star , Lorna – born Helen Nora Wilson Low – escaped her native Buchan age 24 in around 1910. Broken relationships and abandoned offspring followed before the talented, and by now re-badged, Lorna Moon took up with the son of Hollywood mogul Cecil B. DeMille and forged a successful career as a scriptwriter.  Her short stories, first published in Century Magazine , feature a clutch of thinly disguised Buchan folk and pull few punches. Titles such as ‘The Sinning of Jessie MacLean’ and ‘Feckless Maggie Ann’ did not endear her to the locals and, in true Lewis Grassic Gibbon tradition, legend insists that her books were shunned by the local library service. Penned by author/playwright Mike Gibb the play explores the curtain twitching mentality of small-town Buchan. Que...

During the next two weeks, alongside Kinky Boots, there are a couple of must see's in and around Aberdeen. Kinky Boots of course arrives at HMT for a two-week run on Tuesday 23 rd April. Described as “A joyous story of Brit grit to high-heeled hit” it should at the very least be a hoot. The blurb/fluff reads something like ‘Charlie Price is struggling to live up to his father’s expectations and continue the family business of Price & Son. With the shoe factory’s future hanging in the balance, help arrives in the unlikely but spectacular form of Lola - a fabulous performer in need of some sturdy new stilettos.’ So, what’s not to like. On a more local level, we have both Lost at Sea and Doorways in Drumorty to look forward to. Doorways dwells on the extraordinary tale of a Strichen lass by the name of Lorna Moon who made it big in Hollywood script-writing circles. Penned by author/playwright Mike Gibb the play explores a curtain twitching normality last seen in...

Outwardly this is a reassuringly familiar story. Rain Man the play presents as a stage remake of the familiar Hollywood blockbuster and as such is a fairly easy watch. Many of the old lines are present and thirty odd years on they still raise a wry smile or two, but only just. Times have moved on after all and Morrow and Bass’s take on autism has been somewhat dwarfed by the likes of Curious Incident and TV drama such as Autism Every Day. In any case, Rain Man’s Raymond is in a segment of the autistic spectrum not inhabited by many. As a savant, he is blessed – if that indeed is the correct term – with extraordinary abilities which set him apart from most. Card counting is one of his skills and brother Charlie Babbitt – Chris Fountain, quickly exploits this ability to ‘win a shitload of money’ from a Vegas casino. Raymond can also read and memorise two books simultaneously and recall every word. He can memorise entire telephone directories and the list goes on. The downside i...

Todays news that officers from Fraserburgh Coastguard Rescue Team were called out to investigate reports of a sinking ship off Cairnbulg comes as no great surprise. Called into action by the HM Coastguard Operations Centre in Aberdeen following a report by a concerned walker the investigators quickly realised that the wreck was none other than the fishing vessel Sovereign, which had foundered off Cairnbulg in 2005. This is not the first time that the rusting wreck has made headlines. July 2014 saw the crew of the Fraserburgh lifeboat summoned to rescue the crew of the Sovereign only to discover that it had foundered some nine years before A member of the lifeboat crew told reporters that a tourist had been standing on Tiger Hill when she spotted the ship lying on its side on a reef. Scottish Television News reported that "She must have thought that it had just freshly sunk and made the call to the RNLI. It is a familiar landmark to locals but you can see how easy i...

Writing the back-page fluff for a new book is both a pain and a pleasure. The publishers generally put out a pre-publication questionnaire some months before even a single word is placed on the final page. Well, not that final really since drafts more drafts and final drafts are likely to supersede the early content. So, ideas change and the final fluff might not resemble the initial hopeful words. Then of course there is the difficult issue of the title. Should it be ironic, reflective of some pun or simply be a play on some clever words such as ‘Here be dragons’ or ‘You should read this since it will make you cleverer than you were before’? I don’t really know. But what I do know is that the joy of holding the print in your grubby hand makes up for the hassle of getting into print and the lack of monetary rewards. Not many folks know this, but most books fail to make more than the cost of printing and sell just a few thousand copies or even less. At last week’s Ab...

July 2014 saw the crew of the Fraserburgh lifeboat summoned to rescue the crew of the fishing trawler ‘Sovereign’ which had run aground at Cairnbulg some nine years before. A member of the lifeboat crew told reporters that a tourist had been standing on Tiger Hill when she spotted the ship lying on its side on a reef.  "She must have thought that it had just freshly sunk and made the call to the RNLI."   "It is a familiar landmark to locals but you can see how easy it would be for a visitor to mistake it for a vessel in distress" he continued "It was a mistake made with the best of intentions." The Banff-registered trawler had in fact run aground during a storm in December 2005 with the five fishermen on board being airlifted to safety. The rusting wreck later made international headlines when it made a surprise appearance on a promotional cinema poster for the Hollywood movie Life of Pi. The blockbuster, an adaptation of a Yann Martel novel, featu...