WHO says Britain lacks leaders with tractorloads of initiative? Here’s a tale of Scottish farming leaders who were caught up in last week’s UK flights chaos caused by an air-traffic control glitch.
NFU Scotland president Jim McLaren, chief executive James Withers and policy director Scott Walker were stranded at Cardiff Airport last Thursday. Worse, they had to be back at Edinburgh Airport next day for a 5.30am check-in to fly to Brussels to meet farms commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel, a Dane married to a pig farmer. The trio had exhausted all options of getting back to Scotland until they encountered a taxi driver. His solution was to take them to the home of a mate who was asking £725 for his W reg Renault Laguna Sport. Del Boy McLaren knocked the price down to £600 in cash and the three musketeers reached Edinburgh at 1am on Friday after a six-hour drive. So what happened to the car that saved the boys’ bacon? Well, there is an offer of £625 for it on the internet and Mr McLaren, of Dargill, Crieff, is considering a sale.
STRANGE goings-on at Doonies Farm, near Aberdeen. Owned by the cash-strapped city council, it is facing closure but no one seems to have told the rams. Why, only last week. three lambs were born well out of season.
Campaigners to save the farm say it is a happy omen.
EIGHT junior leaders in the 21st Aberdeen (Cults) Scout Group, accompanied by scout leader Charles Lowe and parent-helper Penny Johnson, are back home after an action-packed week in the city’s far-off twin town of Gomel in Belarus.
The city of 500,000 people was affected badly by the fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The lads all sported the kilt, many of them donated by readers who spotted an appeal (Diary, February 8).
Their foreign foray included a civic reception and visits to an orphanage, schools and universities, where they helped teach conversational English. And the verdict? “We want to go back in September of next year,” say the boys.
TWO nomadic musicians who wandered in mesmeric fashion through Scotland’s hills, dales and islands this summer reached journey’s end in Aberdeen. Shetland fiddler Aly Bain and accordionist Phil Cunningham played to a nearly-full Music Hall in the last gig of a tour which began in Orkney at the end of July. Once again, the duo, who have been together for 22 years, produced a stunning range of music from Shetland to Sweden, Canada, the US and Aberdeenshire – not forgetting the banter.
For example, Phil told of the reaction he got at Strichen on Sunday morning when he said to a fan: “Like an Indian summer here.” “Aye,” said the fan, “an Apache here, an Apache there.”
THE Children 1st charity is set to benefit to the tune of £1,500 – thanks to a fundraising concert.
It was staged for about 50 people in the hall of Grandhome House, near Aberdeen, and was followed by a two-course supper in the “big hoose”, the home of David and Juliette Paton.
The concert was given by the Four by Four string quartet and clarsach player Lu McClintock whose music ranged from Gaelic airs to Cole Porter and Gershwin. Oh, and there was a refreshment and canapes at the interval.