By John Ferguson (Pedlar)
Index — Chapters: 1 — 2 — 3 — 4 — 5
Chapter Four – Back to the shop
Bridgend, Morile and Hazelbank
At the start of the Coignafearn road on the right hand side, Johnnie MacKenzie lived with his wife and son. I remember when I was in school in the late 1940’s or early 1950’s his son, whose name I cannot remember, what I can remember was him coming to school and telling the teacher that his father got a new wireless and he could see the clock on it. This was in fact the first TV in Tomatin.
Johnnie was a wireless buff who opened a shop repairing bicycles and wireless (radios) part time. Wireless repair was not too complicated back in those days for someone that knew what they were doing. It was just a box with some wires and valves which lit up like light bulbs when the wireless was switched on. The main source of power was a ‘wet’ battery which was the same principle as a car battery with lead and acid inside a thick glass box which was carried in a metal cage with a carrying handle in order to take them to be charged up. You had to be careful that the acid didn’t spill and burn your clothes and go through to your skin. Because of cost of charging the battery, the wireless was only switched on for the news, certain programs and never on a Sunday!
We, as a family, were brought up to respect religion, having to go to Church or Sunday School each week. There were also things that we were not allowed to do on a Sunday such as listening to the wireless or playing cards. We were brought up in fear of not being respectful. Father told the story of the four lads that were playing cards in the church one night when the devil came and caught them, the lads got up and began to run out. As the devil caught the first lad the boy said that it was not him that had wanted to start the game, it was the lad behind him. As the devil made a grab for each one, each of the lads said it was the lad behind him until the devil reached the fourth lad who said that it was the lad behind him but it was only his shadow. The devil grabbed the lad’s shadow and from that moment the young lad had to go through life without a shadow. This was the sort of thing that was told to kids to instill fear into them and make them believe in religion.
Across the road, Johnnie’s brother Alistair lived with their old mother. Alistair ran the taxi from the village and also worked in the shop with his brother. After Alistair gave up the business Andrew MacKay took over the running of the taxis.
Andrew and Jean MacKay were the next couple to live there and they still do. We had some real good times with them both as it was Andrew who ran the local taxi which we young lads would hire to take us to the dances at Aviemore or wherever there was a good band, even as far as Strathpeffer. The pubs closed at half past nine back in those days when I first started going to dances so it was the norm to have a whip round to get a carry out – maybe a few ‘screw tops’ (they were bottles of beer with a porcelain screw with a rubber sealing ring on top) and a half bottle for the journey. Time passed quickly on the journey though with sing songs and telling jokes, they were happy times. It could be a bit of a rush seeing a girl home and not keeping the taxi waiting too long although Andrew never left anyone behind.
There was one very hot summer night coming home from Aviemore after a dance when we stopped on the old A9 at Carrbridge because there were a lot of people and parked cars up Station road by the deep pool under the old bridge. It turned out that a lot of the dancers had stopped to have a swim which we then joined in. Some of the braver ones were jumping off the pack horse bridge into the pool. We were making so much noise at two o’clock in the morning that Maclennan the local bobby was sent for to stop us and to send us home. This took longer than he thought as not all of us, both girls and boys, had clothes on! Many years later after he retired from the police and started a driving school in Grantown-on-Spey he was giving my wife a driving lesson and he recalled that night and had a good laugh about it saying that he knew the reason why we didn’t come out of the water.
On the right after you left Bridgend there is a small hillock with a clump of trees this is where the Tomatin War Memorial is. It was here that the Tomatin T.A. went on parade on the 11th November every year to lay a wreath for the war dead. The other wreath that was laid was by Ian Watson for his brother who was killed while serving in the RAF as a gunner in a plane. He and his crew were shot down over France during the Second World War. It was after the memorial parade in 1959 that I borrowed Duncan Macleod’s motor bike to go to Duthil to see a girl. When I set off to return home along the road there is a sharp left hand bend at the junction with the Ferness Road and as anyone knows to go round a left hand bend on a motor bike the bike must be held into the left to swing around the corner.
That night as I took this corner all that I can remember were the bright lights of a car coming towards me and the next thing that I remember was three days later in Raigmore Hospital. I was in the hospital for three weeks followed by a lengthy spell of police and insurance enquiries trying to put the blame on me. The end result was that the insurance company wrote and told me to plead guilty and there would be no need to go to court, to which I replied that as I still had the motor bike which showed that only the back wheel was damaged. If the court could prove that the bike had a reverse gear then indeed I ran into the car. Other than that the only way that the accident could happen was if the car had cut the corner hitting the back wheel. That was the last that was ever heard of the claim.
Then along the road there were three cottages that ran at right angles to the A9. I can’t remember clearly who stayed in the first cottage except that she was Miss MacLean, nor can I remember who stayed in the second cottage but the third one was where the MacKenzie family stayed. This was Maggie the butcher and her sister Mary with their two brothers Dan and Andrew who were twins. They slept in the same room but never spoke to each other. The story goes that when they were young they were identical and one was walking out with a girl from Tomatin House and had arranged to meet her at the shop. However he was a bit late and the other one came along and the poor girl thought that it was the one she made the date with and went off with the wrong man – resulting in the brothers not speaking for the rest of their lives!
I worked with Andrew at Tomatin Distillery when he was an old man and Dan was the village hall caretaker and I know for a fact that they never talked to each other. They would even stand in the pub one at each end of the bar and never say a word. Mary was a great baker, as was most of the woman folk, were in those days, but Mary’s melting moments were the best I have ever tasted before or since and I would get two every Sunday when I delivered the Sunday papers.
Across the road was Morile Farm, the dairy that I would walk to after school for the milk. Everyone had two tin pails, one to take home full and the other to be left for the next day. It was run by Mr and Mrs Henderson and their son Edwin whose pinto pony with a real cowboy saddle was the main attraction for me going for the milk . They had taken the pony back from the Falkland Islands where they farmed before coming to Tomatin.
Past Morile Farm on the right was where Johnnie MacKenzie had his shop. Johnnie also drove the van for Fraser McCall the Ironmongers in Inverness. Later his shop would be taken over by George Grant after he left the distillery and started a joiner’s work shop for house repairs.
For the next two or three hundred yards there was an avenue of rhododendrons down to Neacrath Cottage where Mrs Hulse stayed. Behind that Elma Junor stayed at Hazel Bank which was a cottage in front of a large burnt out house. She also owned the land out to the A9 which had big redwood trees growing there. When we were children we would go and punch the trees as it had this very soft bark which we named ‘the punching trees.’
It was from Elma that my wife and I got a plot of land to put a residential caravan on when we first married-but that is another era!
Mrs MacGillivray moved to Neacrath when she came back down the Glen after the family grew up and left home.
.And so this weary rambler eventually reaches the shop and goes left down Old Mill road where there was just the Old Mill that was the home of Jocky and Meg MacKenzie.
So ends my journey around OLD TOMATIN.