Duncan Harley

One of the joys of living in Inverurie a couple of decades ago was the proliferation of local businesses, both small and large, all willing in varying degrees to take that extra step to help the customer spend their money wisely. An aunties family ran an ironmonger in the square and, despite competition from Watsons across the road managed to deliver a decent range of goods and maintain a loyal customer base before abandoning ironmongery in favour of fancy goods and ornaments a few years ago. Mitchells Dairy, in what is now a punk pub, was still delivering milk and feeding shopworkers and shoppers in a lunchtime cafe. And even the banks somehow managed, in a pre-internet age, to cater for local needs. If you knew the lady behind the counter, you were a sure cert’ for a loan. Nowadays the town is going the way of Aberdeen with big brand betting shops, letting agencies and charity outlets littering the High Street. And there are retail parks full of overpriced Nationals offering stuff ...

Known locally as ‘The Mannie’, Oldmeldrum’s  Sailor Boy Statue  is a well-travelled life-size stone sculpture of a mariner clad in period costume, which nowadays lies proudly outside the Meldrum Arms Hotel on South Road.  Rumours abound regarding his provenance. Few know his true origins and some even claim that Spanish gold lies buried beneath his feet. Originally, he held a clay pipe in one hand and a small anchor in the other. Clad in the style of a 19th-century French sailor, he is sculpted from Portland Stone - the same material that Whitehall’s Cenotaph is made from. Mysteriously and many years ago  The Mannie  is said to have been purchased by Alford’s Postie Lawson - inventor of the steam-powered Craigievar Express - at a local farm sale for just five shillings. A factoid confirmed by Grampian Transport Museum who state that the statue stood outside Lawson’s house, at Craigievar until 1938, when it was relocated to Oldmeldrum. If the Portland...