Collieston 1920 Stories

Water Supply

Margaret Ingram is busy doing washing outside ‘Buckies’, circa 1925. At that time the only way to get a supply of fresh water was to carry it in a bucket, either from one of the pumps situated at various points throughout the village or from the Bog Wall in Low Town near the foreshore.

To the rear of Margaret several of the houses that were built on the Cliff are clearly visible. The white house on the extreme right is the one in which T.E. Lawrence stayed in 1930. Behind the houses is the ‘Rivie’, the promontory dividing Cransdale from Collieston.

Margaret (nee Kidd) was born in 1867 and married Charles Ingram in 1893. The couple had eleven children and spent most of their married life in Collieston where they lived in various houses in the village before moving to Cluny Cottages near the Sand Loch in the late 1920’s where they lived until they both died in 1952.

A group of people are fetching water from the pump, near the entrance to Marine Cottage, in 1919. At this time the only way to get a supply of fresh water was to carry it in a bucket, either from one of the pumps situated at various points throughout the village, or from the Bog Wall in Low Town near the foreshore.

Towards the end of the 1920’s the Pumping Station at Perthudden, built some 30 years previously, was upgraded at the cost of £73.00. Water was then pumped from an underground stream up to a header tank at the top of the cliffs.

Many people in the village took advantage of this modern technology and had taps and sinks installed in their homes.

A woman is filling a bucket with water from a water-barrel circa 1920. Prior to the arrival of mains water to the village the only way to get a supply of fresh water into the house was by carrying it in a bucket.

Water had to be fetched from either the village pump or from the underground spring at the Bog Wall. For general household use such as hair washing, most families had a water-barrel for collecting rainwater.

Public Transport

From the early 1920's to the late 1940's Alex Ross, from Newburgh, ran a bus service from Collieston to Aberdeen. He would drive the bus to Aberdeen in the morning, drive the bus back to Collieston again in the evening and then motorcycle back to his home in Newburgh.

In addition to providing a much needed service for the people of the village who worked and studied in Aberdeen, the bus also served as a link between the fishing community who had left Collieston in the early part of the Twentieth Century to move to the Torry area of Aberdeen, and the homes which many of them still owned in the village.

In early summer Alex would drive his bus over to Torry, load furniture onto the roof rack of the bus and drive the families and their belongings back to their homes in Collieston where they would spend their summer holidays. Alex eventually sold the bus service to Sutherlands of Peterhead.

Education

A copy of the Day School Certificate awarded to John (Jack) Ingram in 1926. Jack left Slains School when he was 14 years old. Born at No 22 Collieston in 1912, Jack was the second youngest of eleven children born to Charles Ingram, a salmon fisherman, and his wife Margaret.

The Ingram family moved to Cluny Cottages, one of the former Coastguard Cottages, in 1929. After leaving school Jack was ‘fee’d’ at several local farms before studying to become a psychiatric nurse.

Jack and his wife, Jessie, also a psychiatric nurse, worked at a hospital in Perthshire until retiring in 1970 and moving back to Collieston.

Slains Schoolhouse, viewed from the south, near the main Newburgh-Cruden Bay road circa 1920. The house was home to the Head Teachers of Slains School until the 1980’s, when it was sold as a private dwelling, soon after the retirement of Mr Emslie.

Slains School is clearly visible to the rear of the schoolhouse. In the 1960’s a new school was built to cater for the growing number of children living in the area and the old school was demolished in 1968. The land occupied by the old school was subsequently turned into a playground for the pupils.

Fishwife

A fishwife called Maggie Ross circa 1925 dressed in clothes typically worn by the women residents of the village at that time. The hardwearing leather boots and woollen stockings were required to keep her feet warm and dry and protected from the rough roads.

The skirt, jacket and headscarf were woollen and would have helped keep the cold, north winds at bay. On her back can be seen the creel which would have been filled with fish and carried round the countryside where she would have either sold her fish or used them as barter for meat and eggs.

To keep the farm produce separate from the fish, she would have carried a separate basket.

Spelding Teas

The Collieston Tearoom was very popular with visitors to the village during the 1920’s and 30’s. It was situated on the Brae Head next to the village bakery and, for the princely sum of one shilling and sixpence per person, a mouth watering afternoon tea was provided.

The waitress, smartly dressed in black with a white apron and frill, would bring the purchaser one of Collieston’s famous Spelding Teas consisting of oatcakes and butter, speldings, home made cakes and a pot of tea.

The bakery with Mr A Walker as proprietor, provided the villagers with their daily supply of freshly baked big plain loaves and mouth watering shortbread, baked to Mrs Stock’s recipe.

During the summer months of the 1920’s, visitors flocked to the bakery’s Tearoom to partake of the famous Spelding Teas which consisted of oatcakes, butter, grilled speldings, tea and cakes, all for the princely sum of one shilling and sixpence.

Speldings

Circa 1925, the Tea Room, which was located in the High Town area of the village in the house now known as the Bakery. It’s popularity was based largely on the ‘Spelding Teas’ that helped to attract visitors to the village. People also used to buy speldings to take away.

The building is a single storey rubble and harled cottage with a turf roof and wooden extensions. A feature of the building is the very high chimney which would have created extra up draught for the bakery oven.

The proprietor, A Walker, is standing outside the tearoom, posing for the camera, and is wearing a white apron.