History - Part 1
Banchory's Dual Heritage
A great deal has been written recently, both by academics and by enthusiasts, about the development of artistic traditions in modern Scotland. Much of this is rather specialized, and only a small part is closely focussed on particular communities such as lower Deeside. But to set the scene for this account of certain happenings during the last fifteen years it seems worth attempting, in an impressionistic introductory essay, to sketch the earlier cultural life of the area.
In 1842, when the Reverend William Anderson wrote a finely detailed account of his parish of Banchory Ternan, he noted the presence of one professional artist: a dancing master. This was William Skinner, who took up the profession when unable to continue as a gardener, and passed on a wide knowledge of musical tradition to his sons. James, born in 1843, served his own apprenticeship under a well-known fiddler, Peter Milne; playing the cello in a three-men band which performed strathspeys and reels at the rather strenuous sixpenny dances which regularly took place in barns and bothies throughout lower Deeside.
Those who attended these dances communicated with one another in the northern version of the Scots language known as Doric. (Gaelic, still widely spoken around Ballater, was rapidly retreating westwards.) This richly expressive tongue was well suited for the oral transmission of traditions, histories, songs and legends, as well as the telling of new stories about living personalities. But on other occasions ' at Sunday worship, in court appearances, in dealing with landlords or merchants ' the language used would be closer to English as spoken elsewhere. Artistic work from many countries could be found in the homes of landowners like the Burnetts of Crathes Castle, with its fine architecture, its painted ceilings depicting classical heroes and Muses, its porcelain, silverware and other fine craftsmanship. Meanwhile parish schools nourished a literary culture which inspired scholars like the world-famous philosopher Thomas Reid (1710-96), or Dr. Francis Adams, who combined notable classical research with his medical practice in Banchory.
The bridge which allowed people to move between the worlds of popular and elite culture was provided by education, a main concern of the Kirk ever since the Reformation, and one increasingly valued as agricultural improvement and growth in the Scottish economy opened new rewards for literacy. In 1842 William Anderson counted ten schools within his parish; three church schools, schools endowed by the Burnett & Reid families for boys and girls, the others the product of private enterprise and public demand. Among adults too, as in other parts of the North-East there was a strong demand for learning, reflected in the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, in a parochial library, and in attempts to form 'an instrumental band.' Though most inhabitants of lower Deeside no doubt continued to dance to the old music of fiddle or pipes, and to feel in the Doric, increasingly they found themselves constrained to think, and express themselves, in 'standard' English.
Great changes in the life of lower Deeside began when the railway from Aberdeen to Banchory opened in 1853, and was later extended to Ballater. Improved communications provided stimulated commercial agriculture, and small businesses of many sorts. These tended to centre on the High Street area, which since the opening of the Dee Bridge in 1798 had been superseding the area round the Kirk and the ferry as centre of the village. Another division in community life followed the Disruption of the Church of Scotland in 1843; a majority of church-goers and clergy, fearful of State influence over the affairs of the Kirk, formed separate congregations with their own buildings. In 1851 the Episcopalians, formerly less numerous on Deeside than elsewhere in the North-East, opened their own church of St Ternan. In both secular and religious matters communities became less closely knit, more open to ideas and influences from the outside world ' including to those of 'incomers', from Aberdeen and beyond, who began to arrive in Banchory as holiday-makers or permanent residents.
James Scott Skinner, as he was now known, continued to teach the old Scots dances and fiddle-tunes over an ever-widening area and to compose original reels and Strathspeys; but he also discovered audiences for continental dances and tunes; he was pleased with his reputation as 'the Scottish Paganini.' There were contacts with the world of European art; in 1916 Joseph Farquharson, latterly famous for wintry paintings of his Finzean estate, was elected to the Royal Academy. As books and magazines of many kinds became more readily available to local readers, story-tellers began to record their stories and experiences in print; Aberdeen newspapers, notably the Free Press under William Alexander, provided space for stories and sketches of rural life by North-Eastern writers. A growing literature, in Doric and in English, celebrated the tensions, continuities, and daily pleasures of rural society. During the 1890s Banchory and Round About, an annual publication of the growing holiday industry, published occasional prose and verse by local writers. But little of this was of enduring quality; and once the Education Act of 1872 began to bring schools under the direction of the new Scotch Education Department, they exercised strong pressure for 'standard English'; Doric, forbidden even in many playgrounds, became a submerged minority language.
Improved communications not only helped to import 'polite culture' from Aberdeen and beyond, but offered access to a wider range of popular entertainment with a strong local character. J H Anderson, a Craigmyle-born ventriloquist and conjuror known as 'The Wizard of the North' was a popular figure throughout the region, and across the Atlantic, until his death in 1874. Subsequently Dove Paterson, elocutionist and pioneer of Aberdeen cinema in the twentieth century, became a professional concert promoter. In Banchory his enthusiastic collaborator was Donald Munro, sawmill manager and Provost of the town 1922-28, whose concert parties included Scottish dancers, fiddlers, and a young 'Scots comedian' called Harry Lauder, whom in his later days Munro would entertain in the house which is now the British Legion club.
This diversity of cultural activity, in what the world might consider a rural backwater, continued for most of the century. But external influences ' the growth of radio and television, the impact of experience abroad during two world wars 'increasingly privileged cosmopolitan at the expense of local influences. Doric was still a living language within most homes, and popular entertainment still had a strong Scottish ' even tartan ' flavour. Cultural continuities in music and dance were preserved by teachers of country or Highland dancing, by the Pipe Band, the Accordion & Fiddle Club, above all by the Strathspey & Reel Society, which had an international reputation in this field. But to many new residents such bodies had a limited, rather old-fashioned, appeal.
From the 1970s, Aberdeen's growing petroleum industry began to increase the size, and diversity, of neighbouring communities. Banchory's population grew from 2355 in 1971 to 6036 in 2001. This latest generation of 'incomers', including Americans, Europeans, and Asians, brought many new interests to the town. In the Banchory Theatre Club, entertainers in the Harry Lauder tradition were out-numbered by amateur thespians interested in producing light West End comedies or whodunits, though the two groups combined successfully in Christmas pantomimes with local jokes and references. But Banchory Town Hall, the principal venue for all such performances, had to serve many purposes, charitable, social, administrative, as well as artistic. Beyond the main hall disabled access was difficult or impossible, changing-room facilities inadequate, stage-lighting (even after the District Council made some improvements) rudimentary. As a cultural centre, its saddest hour was in the late 1980s, when a remarkable chamber production of Jenufa by Scottish Opera, weakly promoted by the Council, attracted a single-figure audience. Not surprisingly, most car-owning households with artistic interests preferred to drive to Aberdeen or beyond for concerts, performances, exhibitions or rehearsals.
Some immigrants formed or stimulated new artistic groups. The most exotic of these, the Banchory Morris Men, was founded by ecologists from the Brathens Research Station in 1974, but its 'Banchory Tradition' had to be created from scratch. Newcomers who enjoyed singing could join the excellent church choirs, but people who wanted a more varied repertoire founded Banchory Singers in 1984. Painters, sculptors and jewellers had been moving into the area for years, and, also in 1984, four of them began to arrange annual exhibitions in the town. In 1980 interest in jazz was stimulated when four enthusiasts formed a quartet in order to raise funds for a Scout camp in Canada; for some years regular performances with well-known bands were held in the Burnett and Douglas hotels. All these groups were of course supported by long-term residents as well as newcomers. Nevertheless, by 1990 there seemed to be some danger that older cultural traditions might become marginalized.
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