Duncan Harley

On 23 August 1989, Mary Webb’s ashes were scattered within the grounds of Kaimhill Crematorium at Garthdee. It's a fine place and worthy of a walk around. Mary however had actually been cremated at Oakley Wood Crematorium near Leamington during what Jack Webster recalls as “a brief and pathetic finale; few even in her own native area having the slightest idea of her significance.” So who was Mary Webb? When the Victorian era Aberdeen Music Hall closed for much needed renovations in 2016, a series of public events was organised during the weeks leading up to the closure. Titled ‘Lights Oot!’ the final performances showcased the diversity of the venue and celebrated the entertainments which had drawn the folk of Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire to the hallowed place over the years. Built to a design by architect Archibald Simpson the building opened in 1822, initially as a private membership only gentleman’s club, and over the intervening decades performers as diverse as Charles Dic...

A friend keeps a Saturday paper for me and in return I keep him copies of the Times Crossword. I think it is a good bargain. At least I hope so since I have never completed a sudoku much less a crossword in my life. Seemingly those Bletchley Park heroes were chosen from aficionados who could complete a Times puzzle in something less than three minutes. I am guessing that the war was won not just by troops on the ground but by folk in huts pinpointing targets and first-guessing enemy actions. My old mum would probably have agreed. As a WAAF radar operative in that Hitler war she scanned the skies for signs of enemy bombers arriving from Norway. In four years of service, she only saw the one and recalled reporting the sighting to the sergeant who, disgracefully, took his time over a mug of Bovril before calling in the local Hurricanes, thus allowing the insurgent time to get away back to Trondheim. She rarely spoke about her war service except to say that once she was charged wi...