The Northern declivity of the hill of Parkhouse is called Aikey Brae or Yackie Brae.  In the 1980s there was a play by The Invisible Bouncers, the theatre group of Alastair McDonald, called Pinky Brae, and it was a hit, at least in the North East.  I'm trying to track down some stuff about the play.

The name Aikey Brae is supposed to have derived from the aiks (oaks) of the area, which once clad the hill.  Another idea is that the hill claims its name from Achaicus (or Yochock) a Pictish King. 

Until the 20th century, the Aiky Fair was still held in the area, and marked with the removal of the relics of Achaicus’ brother, St Drostan, from Aberdour to Deer, on the third Wednesday in July.

On Aikey Brae, it is said one of the Earls of Buchan fell from his horse at hunting, and was killed.  The facts of the case state that this happened because the earl had called Thomas the Rhymer, the great prognosticator, Thomas the Lyer.

Though Thomas the Lyar thou call’st me,
A sooth tale I shall tell to thee
By Aiky-side thy horse shall ride,
He shall stumble and thou shalt fa’;
Thy neck-bane shall break in twa,
And maugre all thy kin and thee,
Thy own belt thy bier shall be.

Boswell : We had wine before the Union.

Johnson : No, sir; you had some weak stuff, the refuse of France, which would not make you drunk.

Far ere's slurry ere's sillar? Nae here. Boyndlie is an estate as opposed to a village, or you might like to picture it as a scattered community of farms and other houses.

Boyndlie House lies about six miles SW of Faserburgh, and is a seat of a branch of the Forbes family - although I know the family as being called Ogilvie-Forbes, as have been for at least a century.

My favourite passage in Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped is the episode in which David Balfour is shipwrecked on the island of Erraid.  I sometimes think that Kidnapped goes downhill after the Erraid sequence.  There is the hike across Mull and then the chasing through the heather, none of which attends the climatic drama of the early chapters, and the plot settles into true road-movie territory. Whenever I read the book, I always find myself returning to that old Erraid magic!

The ruins of Inverugie Castle lie on the north bank of the Ugie, about two miles from Peterhead.  Inverugie stands on a slight eminence, with the river winding round it on three sides, the banks being finely wooded. 

A legend says that Inverugie's name is properly ‘Pot Sunk Ann’, as it’s said that one of the Earls of Keith married Ann, a daughter of Crawford, Laird of Fedderat and that after a year of marriage, she was warned in a dream to leave the house. 

Anne was said to have left the castle in the midst of a fearsome storm, and guided by the same treacherous spirit that visited her dreams, she was drowned in an attempt to cross the swollen river.

In the words of the ballad Old Inverugie:

She screamed for help, but none was near,
No succour to implore;
She floated to the eddie neuk,
Then sunk to rise no more.
And to this day that fatal spot
Is known to many man,
And rustic neighbours point the spot,
And tell you ‘There Sunk Ann’.

In the first two years of The Scottish Design Exchange (Design Exchange Scotland CIC) I enjoyed my part in the running and growth of the business.

I began volunteering at The Scottish Design Exchange based in Ocean Terminal, Edinburgh, in the first month after it opened, and started full time work as Director the following Spring.

Notes Copied from the Records of The Beggar's Benison

For which see Male Sex Clubs of the Enlightenment in Scotland

The Minutes of The Beggar’s Benison

1734 Candlemas: 13 Knights present.  Chamber tyled at 3 o'clock, and opened in due manner.  One Feminine Gender, 17, was hired for One Sovereign, fat and well-developed.   She stripped in the Closet, nude; and was allowed to come in with face half-covered.   None was permitted to speak to or touch her.   She spread wide upon a Seat, first before and then behind:  every Knight passed in turn and surveyed the Secrets of Nature.  Afterwards the Sovereign closed the Chambers, after Repast in the accustomed form.  Secresy enjoined upon faith.

Filed under 'Sex Clubs of the Enlightenment', The Beggar's Benison was a drinking club in Anstruther, Fife, which lasted from its establishment in 1732 until 1836.

The Beggar's Benison is famous now for the collective masturbation of its members, something that made up a part of the intititaion ceremony.  The club's members were basically from the upper classes of Fife society, being landowners, merchants and customs contrololers and the like, and they dined and drank together, and related obscene songs and toasts. Much of their purpose of the club was the discussion of sex and anatomy, and the club had a stock of pornography as well as a habit of hiring naked "posture girls" for the members to examine.

This is a list of the Club's Founding Members, as related in a document titled

RECORDS OF THE MOST ANCIENT AND PUISSANT ORDEROF THE BEGGAR'S BENISON AND MERRYLAND, ANSTRUTHER,

published in Anstruther and PRINTED FOR PRIVATE DISTRIBUTION ONLY (MDCCCXCII)

Aberdeen Journal, 31st August 2037:

The suburb of Gilcomston, which last week fell to the Gibleteers (one time of Holburn), is to be destroyed this evening at 6PM. The last team of arbiters, which left the area at noon on the 30th, complained bitterly at the state to which the citizens of "unoccupied” Aberdeen have been reduced.

"It stands to reason," said Chief Moderator Frunkie Meldrum, "that when one section of a populace lay claim to such a large proportion of the pies, the rest will begin to bray for blood."

And this is exactly what has happened. Mothers yesterday welcomed the move, and "single-operative-parents" (SOPs) gathered from Kittybrewster and Garthdee, to stone and to boo/hiss the Gilcomston population after it is herded out after the rout. Several mothers' groups have been calling for the storming of Gilcomston for some weeks now. "Aboot fichen time ken," said Dana Hattons, ex of The Corther. “Wir kids hae nae hid nae pies fir weeks and at's shite."

For the last 4 weeks the lack of mince pie in the Northeast has been critical, and Angus Dung-dee Substitute has proved unpopular with the people, who have largely refused to even feed it to their dogs (although the kids don't seem to mind). Aberdeen Football Club's benefit single "Our Goad is Mince" (B side : Billy Dodds’ Avatar sings : Mincey-Wincey Spider) raised funds to feed Tullos Academy pies for school lunches, for one week, but with the price of meat now exceeding the price of bus fares, even charity is uneconomical.

"Rumour is they've struck mince," said A. A. Milne of Texaco Drilling Co. "We for one sold them twenty million pounds of chopped onion." But the controversy will rage no longer, and arbitration has reached the dead-end field at the fuck-end of bad behaviour, and the Militia move in at 6PM.

"They'll absail down St Nicholas House," said Special Dowser Barney "Premium Cut" Sillerton, "and break through the cordons at Wolmanhill Hospital. The troops will stage a faked move on the Old Age Compound erected at Rosemount, and while this is going on, the Beef Dump will be drained by our special Cornhill Crack Squad, using only straws."

Should the raid be successful, and the peoples of Gilcomston routed, then we could once again be enjoying our pies," said Councillor Alwyn Lamb (age 6).

In the meantime, experiments continue. Scientists are working on a new substitute known as Diced Forfar Briney, and the last cow is to be auctioned at the Beach Ballroom, in a special ceremony tonight, hosted by Nicki Campbell IV (under the armed protection of the Beef Volunteer Reserve Force).

"It came from the sky like a Hun in a trail of blue pish towards us faster than a shot of smack to the final section of the large intestine."

In August last year, Mr Baxter Dunders of Glasgow suffered a severe heart attack while visiting the West Lothian Drugs Park. He was discharged from Hunbridge hospital two months later, and from that day until his death at the New Year, Mr Dunders was in very frail health and required to be nursed by Lorenzo Amaruso, drinking three litres of Sunny Delight each hour, and pissing clear blue meths.

He passed away to be the Lord, one of  the greatest advertisement for the Drugs Park, and remains in the memory of the authorities, one of the greatest burdens there has ever been on the British taxpayer. Sinewless, and generally greeting, Mr Dunders found respite at the West Lothian Drugs Park, from where he was never turned away. Unlike his local pubs in Proddieston, Sounesburn and Anthemdale, The West Lothian Drugs Park offered the isolation required for Mr Dunders to expel all the carnality and anxiety from the heart of his alcoholic shopping bags. Visitors to the Drugs Park can still see the Shopping Bag, but are strongly advised to bring their own carry out.

Sandram Lewis Dunders : "While walking at the Park his body was united with the smack, and his pain and anxiety left him. Which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day : and not to me only, but unto all them also that love their ecky"

(2 Tim. 4:8)