My Story

So I managed to get along better than would have been expected “for such a runt” but I was never really one of “the chosen” at the Academy, I wasn’t any good at football, and I wasn’t from a farming family dynasty or a fishermen’s.

Instead I formed a bond with some misfits like myself who were not into the same stuff as everyone else for the most part… our little merry band, had some brains and some brawn, mixed through… but the main thing is that we were bright, and articulate and enjoyed having fun, poking at the absurdities of life…and we had a laugh, a bright multifaceted view of things, and we did make each other laugh, and we counted on each other, and we were a very close group.

The band of 4 went on to be:

Aberdeen Police Detective;

Chemist at a nuclear plant;

Senior Management in the Leisure industry, then a Bar owner in Rio;

Myself, the geeky little kid from the city, a varied and ultimately successful kind of international career, more of my story later….

We had fun, we were punk rockers, almost started a band, and through a nervous breakdown of a schoolteacher “not one of my parents, ahem”, I got to do an extra year at school and have more time in Macduff before going to sea, a pivotal part in the onions development!

We worked together in the building of the North Sea Gas processing plant at St Fergus, many a tale to tell about that period…

I got a job briefly with the travelling circus when it came to town…

Salmon fishing, Potato Harvesting, Pool playing for money after a particularly idiotic car accident, in a builders yard? Helping out in the pub of course, where I was relied upon to spell my folks… and be there when it was busy… it did of course have its perks…