The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
DORIC COLUMN ROBBIE SHEPHERD
To contact Robbie, email yourlife@ajl.co.uk and mark your message FAO Robbie Shepherd
Folk wha ken their grun like the back o their han’,
FUT LIKE FOLK? – JOHN C MILNE
Weel, weel an fit like, noo at we’re sattlin doon tae the New Year wi some sort o normality tho it maks nae muckle odds tae the chauve o the een at’s awa? As a skeely scientific billie said the ither day, it’s something we maun bide wi an thole, yet lookin forrit tae a jab ilka eer like the flu.
Nivver myn, like mony mair oor festive season wis a quait affair, the Christmas tree is doon an tuckit awa in a new reistin place efter aa the palaver, pain an panic o climmin up the pull-doon steps tae the laft tae runk it oot, legs danglin ower the edge, a thochtie feart kyn – a parachutist on’s first loup oot o a plane. Na, aal age disna come its leen an ere in sections the tree lies snugly in the glory hole aneth the stair efter a major exercise tae clear a space hopin we myn far it is neist Christmas. On at I hid a check-up at the Fracture Clinic at ARI last week, an eer efter I fell sklyte in the ice, the new shooder gettin the all-clear bit the keeliper still haein ma back lattin’s ken nae tae be a feel gype again.
Eneuch o that as I turn tae these lines o ‘Fut Like Folk’, in peyin tribute on the recent death o educationalist David Northcroft fa contributit sae much tae the promotion and preservation o oor ain mither tongue and the wye o life fae aa pairts o oor North-East neuk.
On retirin, David set his hairt on compilin an collatin tapes o interviews wi fowk in their ain tongue an a story tae tell resultin in 600 tapes an aa transcrib’t intae fower muckle beuks, Grampian Lives Volumes 1 and 2 and Aberdeen Lives Volumes 1 and 2, coverin the hale 20th Century.
I first got tae ken David throwe the Elphinstone Institute o Aberdeen University and found him such a kindly warm man an wis fu of admiration for his labour of love. Ere’s nae doubt that his warm doontae-earth approach wis instrumental in gainin the confidence o aa them interview’t an his lestin legacy will be in bestowin aa the precious tapes tae the University for future generations.
Tae feenish it’s back tae the emails an es een fae retired cleric Andrew Lyon at fair tickl’t me:
‘Not long after I retired, which is a number of years ago now, and had moved to Keig, I was posting a letter at the Post Office in Alford when a lady, also on similar errand, chatted to me. Being a retired cleric, I enjoyed her chatting – we ministers usually do! and then she says ‘I am speaking to Robbie Shepherd aren’t I?’ I had to tell the lady of course that she was mistaken and after a laugh or two and a few more words of conversation we went our own way. I said to my wife when I returned home, ‘Do I look like Robbie Shepherd?’ She assured me that I don’t and you can be sure you’re not being mistaken for a minister mannie!!’