Joe Brandie
Landlord whose much loved Fiddichside Inn served no food, 40 different whiskies and two ales
JOE BRANDIE, who has died aged 88, was the teetotal landlord of the Fiddichside Inn, a favourite of Speyside whisky lovers that was described by a Telegraph reviewer as “the ultimate local”.
Built in 1840, the Fiddichside Inn at Craigellachie has been in the family for nearly a century. For half of that time, Joe ran the pub with his wife Dorothy who, on her death in 2009, was Scotland’s longest-serving landlady. The couple’s clientele was largely made up of fishermen and hikers.
George Hollingbery, MP for Meon Valley and Parliamentary Private Secretary to Theresa May, was a regular during fishing trips to the area. He recalled: “What a pair Joe and Dorothy were. From tales of wartime to the raised eyebrows at a request for ice, there was a constancy and certainty of their presence on every return.”
The appeal of the tiny (10ft by 15ft) whitewashed pub on the banks of the river Fiddich, which runs into the Spey, lay in the Brandies’ friendly service. There was no food, only two ales (though 40 different whiskies) and no carpet, but on a recent Christmas Day a record 40 people squeezed in (including pipers).
“I haven’t drank since I started working in the bar,” said Brandie. “I stopped drinking then, you can get too involved.”
Joe Brandie was born on August 19 1929 at Glenlivet. After two years’ National Service in Germany he trained as a cooper and worked initially at the Macallan distillery. But after a back injury he became a ghillie on the Spey and worked the river for nearly three decades.
He married Dorothy Smith in 1959. Her family had run the Fiddichside Inn since 1919 (her grandfather was a notorious illicit distiller). Following the death of Dorothy’s mother, the couple took on the pub, while Brandie kept one leg in the river. Dorothy, who spent most of her working life at the inn, served with the Royal Corps of Signals in the Middle East during the Second World War.
They maintained a pub with traditional values. “I’ve no time for TV or anything like that,” said Brandie. “I’ll never get music or a television in here.” He observed that the area had changed over the years, with the closure of both the railway station and cooperage.
But the inn remained; after his wife’s death Joe Brandie ran it on his own, sometimes working 12-hour days. There were no children of the marriage.
In 2010, Brandie, as a trustee of the Craigellachie Curling Club, sold the club’s site and donated the proceeds to village organisations, including the school and the church.
Joe Brandie, born August 19 1929, died September 24 2017