In this episode, Iain Craigie remembers his early life - in the 1940s and ‘50s in a little North Eastern Scottish village, Kingston-on-Spey. The rich conversation with his daughter, Jane Craigie, covers a young boy’s relationships with nature, the long-lost shopkeepers and the ebb and flow, and immense freedom of living in a coastal village at the end, and immediately after World War II. If you love conversation, our natural environment and Scotland, we hope that you’ll enjoy this episode.
In this episode, Iain Craigie remembers his early life - in the 1940s and ‘50s in a little North Eastern Scottish village, Kingston-on-Spey. The rich conversation with his daughter, Jane Craigie, covers a young boy’s relationships with nature, the long-lost shopkeepers and the ebb and flow, and immense freedom of living in a coastal village at the end, and immediately after World War II. If you love conversation, our natural environment and Scotland, we hope that you’ll enjoy this episode.
Welcome to the spy. You raised me podcast conversations between a daughter and her father. Yes, you've guessed it was a spy. My name is Jane Craigie and I'm here with my dad, Ian Craigie. We're recording this on, zoom in, in another wave of the COVID roller coaster, or corona Coast coaster as people call it. How are you dad? Yeah, good. Jan, it's Corona. Haven't had that roller? Coaster? Coaster? No, no, it's a good one. That must be Scottish. I don't know. I don't know. It's the ups and downs of this lesson virus. Turner. Turner is bad news, isn't it? It is bad news. There you go. Anyway, so today, we are going to have done a podcast for a while. I'm not really sure why we've both been busy. But today, we are going to go back in time to the place where dad spent his childhood. So it's a little village on the Murray Firth called Kingston. On Spain. It's right at the mouth of the Spain as the name suggests. And dad tell us a little bit about the village. Yeah, the villages. The older I get, the more I look back and and think of the village in different ways. I think that's human nature. Now, as you go through the years, I'm getting on a bit now. And you're looking back to friend days and 50. So a lot has changed since then. But when you look back at Sam, I think it was such a privileged upbringing, you know, in a small village like that, and way back, and 17 just to give you some idea of the history of slavery, way back in 1783, a long time ago, two enterprising men from how in England decided that they wanted to build ships in Kingston. Kingston was a small battery, probably 50 houses or thereabout. And these man contacted the Duke of Gordon, who had advertised the sale of timber. And the and the might of timber was absolutely exceptional. It was it was for Australia, best pine wood and these two men. So this looks interesting if we could get the word, Kingston. We could set up shipbuilding, enterprise and, and Kingston. Wouldn't that be a nice thing to do? So that's what they did do. They sold at least they bought the land from Zuko garden for 10,000 pounds, and they came to Kingston. And over a period of years, they created shipyard, and they created living places for the people who came and work. So that is the the introduction. So Kingston, yes. Jane said, is in a lovely position. It's on America. It has a space flowing and to the east of the very edge. And it has a large shingle beach that you can see from the bay. And it has the most gorgeous sea you ever saw. Just Soviet. And the nature going back to the 1940s 1950s was unbelievable. It is sort of unchanged was bay that my father is full of fish, different types of fish and we'll patch there probably in a later podcast. But it was just teeming with nature. And because it was such a sparsely populated area. It was virtually unchanged, I guess, two or 300 years. One thing that we probably didn't describe particularly well is that For for listeners elsewhere in the world, Kingston on Spain and the river space is in the northeast of Scotland. And it is it's a beautiful part beautiful area, which is known for fishing for agriculture. And for oil and gas dominantly now, isn't it? Yeah, but it's always been a fishing and farming area, hasn't it? And a big malt whisky area as well. Yes, yes. And I mean, it has that variety of things going on. And it's, it's reflected in the people I think, because they are very versatile population who have larger scales, one wouldn't have thought that, you know, a small village like Kingston and it has a neighbouring village, a twin village called Gardiner, which is about a mile from Kingston. And you would never have realised that variety of skills and the attitude of the people who lived in that area was equal to none. I mean, they were just incredible how they could do things and have a good change doing things that it was remarkable. Anyway, getting back to the village itself, and as I said earlier, we'll we'll do a podcast on how the fishing, fishing boat industry and flippers, they manufactured a variety of different types of ship. But the village itself had a unique setting. As I said earlier, quite close to the the esterase the spay, which on a regular basis, migrated westwards, and every every probably 30 years, a new estuary had to be done. So there was this, this sort of ever changing scenario of river changing, changing its direction, say its estuary, and the matter of fact, which you know, to, to visit them very fast and calm summer's day with with lazy wave slapping on on the shingle beach and sandy beach, because it's a mixture of sand and shingle was just just incredible, so peaceful and also with the noise that the roar of the space, which is kind of terrible, and it was just amazing. But it's had another side and during times when the tides were particularly high, if that was coupled with the storm coming off the sea and tanks then very different indeed, huge waves coming piling in and Gail's disrupting many of the houses and things. And I think that even as recently as a few weeks ago, one such storm occurred when a so many trees were blown down and at the back of Kingston which is probably 6070 metres from from the sea and from the estuary, this bay the sea bursts through the cengel and finished up probably 30 metres from the back of the house the last row of houses and so yeah, this kind of combination of serenity, nature and so on but you also have this and frequent storms coming in from the from the North Sea. So and in that vein, the sea and the river probably contributed more to the atmosphere of the very the, the fish that were that were around in those days, probably in the 50s and 60s. Was just again, unbelievable. The salmon the salmon used to come in and in the autumn, but heading and say and see chart Phenix and grandchild Amina just abandon. And it was no, it was no lie to say that the amount of fish coming especially into this space was was remarkable. And way back in the 1700s, they had started farming fish. So there were hundreds upon hundreds of people who lived in the village and neighbouring area, karma. And then they had boats that used to work on the SRA display and further out, but mainly that estuary, netting salmon. And the number of salmon the weight of salmon that they took out of the survey was, just can't believe it. And they had to think then of building ways, or finding ways of preserving the salmon when they had been caught, because there was so many salmon there were tonnes and tonnes of fish. So what they did was they built a nice house, but a number of ice houses. And during the winter, it fell, the ice house is full of snow and ice. And all the salmon were placed in those and like a huge freezer. They lasted right through the year to the following. They autumn. So that all of that is part of the structure of the area. Have you have you seen Majin? Who's in the Ice House? And yeah, all of all the way I haven't seen the one in Kingston, but all the way along this northeast coast. Any big property had an ice house. So it was dug deep into the bank, usually, and stone. And they would just do exactly what you said that they would put snow into into it. But the other thing that I heard, I think up at Def house in New York, we also used to import timber and other goods. And they used to take blocks of ice from Canada and places like that on these ships. And they would use that in the ice houses. Really? I don't know. I didn't realise that. Well, that that's something else, isn't it? Imagine? You know, travelling, bowling Nice. Yes, for heaven's sake. Yeah. So that was that was broadly speaking the village and over a period of 10s of years. They continue with that until I suppose within the last 40 years, people have become sensitive to the fact that some many fish were were being taken out of the space and now curtail the amount of fish that can be taken. And I think the nets in most areas that probably a couple of estuaries, estuaries where they they sell fish with nets, but certainly at Kingston, in in Spain. It's no longer it's no longer allowed. No, apparently, on some of the rivers and probably a space included, but I certainly know the D and the dawn, which are further south. in Aberdeen. Sure. They now that local fishing trusts have bought the rights for netting that the mass of the river so that they can and they've employed scientists to look at why the fish stocks are going down so dramatically. Because there's a real problem in all of these rivers in the northeast of Scotland now in terms of salmon, and also sea trout numbers. Yeah, that's interesting. So those days you talk about, you know, we we've never seen certainly, I've been living up here for nearly 20 years and I've never seen volumes of fish anywhere near what you're describing. No, I mean, as we because we lived in the village. We had pre permits. So all the inhabitants of Kingston and Garmin and village could fish for free. And that was all the way along the beach. And Lossiemouth was the next town, West west of Kingston, which is four miles away so we could fish on IP. And also I think it was the first four poles and in the space because it was quite busy. As further up, stay towards Avalara. Where, you know, it's very expensive for people to get permission to push on and film. I way back in the 50s, I guess when we were fishing, I mean, we all have salmon roads and Sierra spent half of time fishing, and they had a variety of fishing. And I can, I can recall some some lovely memories of fishing. One of the pools golf course, is a good good day place for catching sea tracks. And we used to go across to the Gulf Coast pool, and we refresh start fishing apps nine o'clock in the evening. And then as a guru dot c check Kim and seat set out notorious for jumping high when the taken fly because those fly us and even in the darkness, you refreshing, refreshing you were all of a sudden you'd hear this flat. And a few seconds later, the SeaTac landing in the water. And it was happening, we could fish and get half a dozen sea check overnight, and then go back in the morning and pride that that time of year, you know if you were fishing in the world, presumably in through the spring, the light the daylight would still have been certainly as you got into April, May and June. The days are incredibly long up here in the northeast of Scotland, don't they? Yes, that's a good point. So you could I mean, you had much longer hours of daylight Did you say? Yeah, so that was good. And before I start describing Kingston, one of the, as a child, you know, having spent 15 years and think one of the great attraction was the barn stream that that flowed through the village. I mean, you can imagine with with all the young kids, and no screens, no television, we used to. We used to congregate in the morning and just play play in the barn across at the spare on the beach, and we had so much to do that. And having that nature when I think of it, that van was full of all sorts. And it is to my regret, I think about a lot. We all had point 177 rifles in those days to to hunt rabbits. But we also had what we thought were rats in the band. And we will do that was one of the sports who would say Oh, come on, we'll, we'll shoot a few rats. Because in later years, we realised they were whatever role so I think they're still there today when you look back and think I wish we'd know I guess. So, coming into the village genuine recall. So on the left first first the first road as you came into the day was lean road. And lane road was where we lived. But this one I was brought up I just happen to have been built by one of the one of the two men who had come from how 100 years prior to that. And they had built probably three houses of some substance. They lived in them. And they were made they were built a planet. And they were three storeys high. So in a village has had one story cottages and the sort of students but the Great, the great joy of having a bone at the bottom of the garden was a square. So yeah, so that was that was part of it. And the hinterland. I mean there's a lot of farms around around Kingston because the occupations were either farming or working Advisory Commission or working in places like Bucky and bam, where fishing boats were built. So that a lot of very skilled artisan and Kingston who basically spent a life building boats and Bucky see going fishing boats. So I mean that that was all part the hinterland A to the North was to the west and south rather was either farming are just swampy land with weeds and full of full of wildlife. And with on the on the banks there were farms invade sandy land. But the amount of variety of wildlife there was just incredible. Because they had so many different types of land, they could they could read it, I mean that I can remember, snipe me every, every autumn. Before that you'd hear the snipe, male slide coming, diving down to impressive female. And the beach and Pilar West, there were a variety of different seabirds who nested nested in either in the trees or on the stony beach. And I mean a serious amount of good work out there. And we used to pinch the egg, especially from the heading girls, and eat them raw it was going, but there were 10s of heading pet shows where all the ground, again nesting birds. And when you walked through that, on the way to last mile, it would attack here, especially the town so you had to you had very nimble footed to get through that. At the back of that there was a Forestry Commission plantation, which we used to work in as a stew that was full of different species like would go and further up the hill and corncrakes Because you don't hear in here. You have to go to us or some of the islands that he animates. I mean in those days, and contracts are everywhere. Now that we're in the barley fields and corn pills, you never saw them but you you could hear them and they would be throughout the breeding season. Every calling and calling and calling and God has thought that a guy will never so and a couple of times can you remember these gems? Great No I've never seen called corncrakes Dad. I know there's been some reintroduction projects or or encouraging corncrakes on some of the islands like you say sky and places like that. And but yeah, they're quite a rare sight now, aren't they? Yes. Yeah. But that whole Yeah. The whole of the northeast of Scotland. Sorry to interrupt you. We are so lucky that it's the migratory route for so many different birds, isn't it? No wonder Dad, you've always been passionate about bird life in particular. Do you do you think that that interest came from being brought up as a young boy and you talk about it very fondly that used to spend many many many, many hours walking around Kingston, the sand dunes and you know the whole of that landscape and that seascape watching birds, huh? Two birds and listening to bark, which is another facet of you know, observing. Yeah, one of my effect. I was talking to a friend of mine the other day who was brought up in that area. And I was saying to you remember stickleback, and he said, vaguely, thing and as you come into Kingston, from Garmin, right hand side. There are tall beds of reeds, because because of the fact that it's so close to the freshwater and the space and the self that was created with other streams flowing into that. It was an ideal place for reeds to grow. So we had read probably six feet high. You can imagine As you can imagine the wealth of wildlife and that one of my, one of my loves to stay was to crawl into these sheets. And what it was quite clear, probably food maybe two feet deep. And it was also secret because you could crawl into the reeds. No one knew that. And you were at one with nature. And the stickleback were fascinating little things run about three inches, three inches long. And they had colonised the, the reedbed. And because it was brackish water, some fresh water from the spear, but also some coming in from the sea. It was an ideal habitat. For the stickleback. And the male's stick about bossy little things were at a deep red chest to chase away I suppose would be and creditor and the female female stickleback, all she did was was well she did she did a big job, she laid laid eggs on the bottom of the pool. And then the male cyclebar would look after the eggs would chase away any any marauders would be road, they would find the eggs to give them plenty of oxygen. So I used to lie that lesson. Planning, it's fannett planning, it's a it's fend. Above the eggs, you can see little raffles of Sam coming up as it as it did that. But no, I think and similar things, you know, little, little cameos of, of nature that you would see in a variety of different ways. So we used to spend hours and hours, not not stealing eggs from some of the birds are nesting in there, but just watch and trying to find. And he gets some idea of what the habits were fed on. You know, things like that. And over a period, I think it got seared on your on your mind set. And ever since because of that I have a great and affinity with nature. And it's a if anything is blending, so that becomes more poignant than when you're young. Because I think when you're young, you're not aware of perhaps the dangers for birds and fish and so on to breed successfully. So yeah, so that that is a part of my life now doing doing that, Jenny, you're very fond of that, too. I am, I am, I think I think having a one of your parents who's passionate about it, and always notices that and I think one of the things that I see in you, which, you know, when you when you live in the countryside, it is easier to do. But a lot of people did it during the pandemic, because everything quite dammed it. And that is to understand the rhythms of nature and of seasons. So often people, you know, go through their lives at 100 miles an hour. And if you're living in a city, you don't see the sky as well. And you can't appreciate all of the things that you grew up with. But that is one of the things that I've learned from you is to appreciate those rhythms of nature and to try and take some time to notice them. Because you can you can feel and see so much if you enliven your senses to it, you can feel a cold front coming in. You can use it every morning when you wake up. You can sense a difference in the day. And it can be you know, it can be all sorts of factors that change a day from one day to the other. But, but to notice those things is so important, isn't it? Yeah, it is. And another thing that people don't do so much in this modern world is listen. There's so much to be learned through listening to wildlife to birds sing to different habits that they have different, different seasons. You know the noise that cheese make when it's when it's windy, and things like that, I think, I think, you know, this project that we have, with a lot of months and nature, I think one of them, one of the great things about doing something like that is getting children in particular to listen to listen, and just sometimes just slow down, sit down, or lie down in a field and just listen. And you can pick up so much and you feel part of the extended family. You can say, you know, that NATO can say over a period, they'll accept your presence, and to some extent, and then they're always nervous, because, you know, human beings are not good news as far as nature. And yeah, and it's interesting to see that going back to Kingston the, the nature of the complexity of it, and diversity offered to adjust your land such a lot both, but now we complain about eels coming, coming up and hundreds coming up with abandon and ability. And they would they would make their way up to to the swamps and that province away from the waterfalls, there were little brown child, and it was all part of the, the excitement of like, see, see things like that and, and to run home and tell somebody that you I've seen this and I've seen see that very exciting, Dad? Yeah. I was gonna also ask you about, um, you know, we're talking about the past and observations about the past. And one of the things I can always remember about Kingston is the, the richness of people, and also commerce, you know, even in a tiny little village like that. Even, you know, in my lifetime, I can remember three shops in that village and now you go to Kingston, there are no shops. It's changed a lot, hasn't it? Remarkably, and it's that's that is your timing. There was just Jane because I spoke to my sister, your auntie and Florida. She lives in Florida. Yesterday, I think I mentioned you say I spoken to her. So we were chatting away and I was saying I was in you remember? You remember the bar? And then she said, Yeah, I remember the bar and she's 11 years younger than I am. Yeah, remember that? And what about the eels? Yeah, remember the eel. And what about Kylie? And there was a, there was a pause and she said, the sharp show and Yvette anything epitomises you know, village like, like Kingston. It was the shop because they, they were definitely were three shops at one stage. The Kylie was the first shop as you entered the village on the left, and he he was, he was a dear old chap. He recalled him Kaylee because he or she can kind of and he could write a book about it was such an offensive man. He, he ran a shop and did antiA and Len was talking to yesterday, she was falling off a chair laughing because I said, Do you remember Kyle? Oh, yes, I remember Kyle. And I said, Do you remember his wooden leg? And what about the show? He said, Yeah, I remembered that I could remember. He had cheese on the counter under a gauze painting. And she said it used to be the same lump of cheese. And after a few weeks, and it would sell. left, lift up this goes cage hack off a PCT he was he was an incredible man he had he kept a cow switch. He kept asking me to a half a mile from the village and my early memories. Kyle going up the Burnside And they slowly with this wooden leg, and he would walk all the way up to a cap this cap. And it would take him half an hour to get out there. And he would get a hold of his cow and it'll brand his neck. And then he'd walk all the way back to the, to his place in the village. And he had a buyer at the bottom of his garden and rarely shop. And he would get the car and, and she would milk it by hand. And I can always remember it's a fun memory I have, he would sit on us to imagine him sitting down to milk, his his left leg, which is written leg, we're displayed underneath the cows belly. Because in there, he bought a car with a brand new though that would be turned around so that he could place his head on the cows say and not disturb it too much the hard brand, and it would just sit there and you hear this as a milk cow. And then having done he would he would fill up all the CANS that we in the village had left on his doorstep. They were tin cans with a lid that fitted quite snugly. So if you needed milk, you put their they clean and pan on his doorstep the night before. And then he would fill up whatever cans are there. And so then seven o'clock in the morning or something Edison said go and get them out, is spent on the main street and get this thing up and bring it back. But the thing about Kyle was He never complained. It's such a gentleman. And his living conditions were they were not they were not hygienic. And then he would set some some of us used to go and keep them company 79 And he would hit a tin plate that was a template plate. He had a knife which is sharpened from time to time and his head was pointed because there's so little metal left on it. You can imagine the handle and a little diamond a little triangle of metal but he used to sit there and you'd have to have a buffalo cheese again, and it would just sit there and cut away and another one occasion alas would pop up and as table and never used to do anything you just sit and watch this rat get screwed. And eventually the rat that he ran occasion has his grandson was staying for the weekend. And he was in a cart and and one of the the bottom of the lower floor scheme in the middle of the night. Kylie said I didn't know what was happening. He said and of course he had had he slept upstairs with his his wooden leg. A you know by his bedside. He had to turn that downstairs either that spent five minutes. But the boy the little boy had been had been bitten by a rat and saw it and you know I was nervous talking to Jen saying I must try and and contact Kylie's grandson, who lives in Kingston now. But I haven't succeeded yet, but I will just to see what he remembers of that. Maybe if he's listening to this he can get in touch. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so that was so his shock was full of St. Len exercise. And I said can you remember he had in the shop? And she said he had he had good polish? Yeah. Yeah, Dragon trees Fruit gum, which he chewed himself sometimes and you had to get pushes false teeth back and when you had that he had tees he had matches. He had fly, you know, the fly catchers, the ones you enrolled. have put it all of these things in his doorbell on his shop had had one of these, sprouting the old fashioned Victorian strings with a bell on the end. So he had that, but it was surprising how many how many things Len could remember. So I said write down anything. Because, you know, Luke is such an unfair. But those days, you know, those, it's, you know, we always see in our lifetimes things going back to where they came. And now with as we face climate change, and all of us having to change our, our habits and be very conscious about what we do and what we waste what we don't waste. In a local buying local has become a big part of our lives now. Yeah, and back, you know, what you're describing there is, although it may not have been the most hygienic shop, but that was the way of things back then we didn't have the health and safety regulations that we do now. But most importantly, that little shop was a lifeline for all of the families that lived in the village, you relied on him and he would stock anything he needed. I know you told me a story once that he used to stock shoes and socks and all of those sorts of things that little corner stores used to stop. Yeah. And Lynn recalled an incident where my mother and her mother say and said she was she suffered from dementia. And she'd said to Lanlan I need I need a night Jess. And so on In Kaylee shop with folded up on one of the shelves. He said so he said, Would you go down and and get it? I want to buy it. Yeah, that dress. So so off she went. And she said, I can remember quite clearly. Bell goes and and Kylie's tap, tap tapping. It was rude. It wouldn't like from his kitchen at the back. And she said, I stood there and, and when he when he arrived counter said, Oh, my mother wants to buy the night dress. And he said, Oh, I'm sorry. He said it's too late. They said I had to use it on my beehives up in the field. keep him warm. She didn't get it was probably flannelette as well, it was probably. Exactly. Yeah, so Oh, well, it's um, it's really, it is really lovely to reminisce on all of these things. Because sharing your memories of that place for anybody who's been there, or anybody who's interested in the northeast of Scotland. We should all be doing this, shouldn't we that? Yeah, of course we shouldn't. It's, it's almost, it's therapeutic, isn't it? And, you know, I think the number of life is so fast. At this point in time you miss so, so much of the content of life, life. I mean, sitting and talking about different things. You it remind you of how things were not necessarily in a nostalgic sense, but, you know, that's how it was, and to get to get the feeling of, of, you know, how people lived in those times and how they survived. I mean, it was a question of surviving, I get some of that is, I think it's it's so interesting. And how do you feel when you think back to those early years? Well, I think I'm, I feel I think somebody the other day, I I feel privileged of having, you know, lived in a village like that, but of course at the time that you're there, you're so busy doing things and you know, fishing or going to school or walking the dog, you know, sayings are so intense when you're young that it's not until you can unravel some of those memories and literally you feel the benefit of it you know, and I think it's for people who write autobiography, ciao charm of that you you can can see into their life in their, in their mind and the memories and And that's a very beautiful thing to be able to do. Yeah, it is. And if you think back to when you were brought up, you did mention it, there were no screens. Photographs were a rarity, because they were complicated to take, and they were expensive to process. And they were just bits of cardboard ultimately. So so many families have have, you know, have very few of those precious and particularly every day, memories, and I know, we googled Kylie's shop to try and find a photo of it. And of course, nobody, you know, be very unlikely that anybody ever took a photograph of the inside of that shot. No, that's right. And you you mentioned three shop. The other shop is, that's why they have no it was the Dunbar's shop, which was on their beach road, which there are three roads and and then takes in the nude beach road and middle road and anyway, then, then Barshop vitro was, was better stock one has to say that Kaylee she she used to miss down by used to sell ice creams and lemonade and stuff like that. It's very popular, but one of the things she did, she did do and I was explaining to, to my grandson had the other day was that the public beach, the Shengli beach, and Kingston has loads of semi precious stones that have come from erosion, cover up the space falling by the Spirit. And she she had Miss Dunbar at a hobby. And she she said and one occasion said Come Come with me and we'll walk up. So we walked up to Beijing. And I've said what is it you're looking for? She said, I'm looking for Carnelian semi precious stones. And I said, God say tech, how can you find a piece of chameleon on a beach like this? It's absolutely covered in pebbles and cengel. She said, come with me and I'll show you how to do it. So here we're walking west towards us. And we're Shingo and patches. And she said Dan said see the sun as I said, Yeah, it's getting blue in the sky. You look can you look at the singer? And she said Carnelian has a property that allows the sun the sun's rays to to come through it. And you see a pink light said it's not very bright, but but you can pick them up. When you're used to to titillate, you know? Hey, dammit. So she picked up a couple of these in Pebble turnip there. There's a comedian that's nice. So we took back back to the shop to said now we're gonna do is this so she had one of these machines on her character that you put water on and some abrasive material. Check it in and switch it on, leave it a week. That's what she used to do. And she used to get these lovely little Carnelian semi precious gem and then her hobby was fashion that was to get a handful of these and make jewellery, earrings and satellite angles. So centre to my pattern. What about getting one of those feet and I'll have plenty bedsheet we haven't Oxfordshire suitable and I gravel on a driveway, you get some limit. Why don't we do that? So he's quite keen on that. Yeah, so that was another classic, really well, it's lovely that you were you were one of four. But you know, another thing I suppose that was different back then is that there would have been a lot of children in that village. Yeah. You drive through Kingston now and it's like many coastal villages now you know, people work in other towns or cities and you know, there aren't so many children. And if there if there are they have to go further afield to go to school because all the little schools have closed down. Yes, that's That's very true. There were I mean, there were so many children there. And, and because there was no entertainment inside, they all spilled out into the village, dogs children, and there was sort of meet up and say, oh, what can we do today and there are games like kick can and skipping garage, and all sorts of really wonderful games. And then especially in the summer, as you said earlier, it's very light and too late, and it's got an app out. So we used to stay out until nine o'clock at night, rather bland and go to the beach and one of the bird's eye and neglected to mention whether vide wagtails pied wagtails all along the beach, where branches had been had been thrown up on the beach, and where tin cans were trusting and just knowing that a net colonised legit these impacts and the land they made them nests and in there, and lived on there. And the little insects and so on. But at the price, the price when I'm looking for tin cans and nests was to find Brasso tins, remember Brasserie J, yeah placer was a polisher, it had a little less to that, that was usually difficult to undo. So is to go and look for me. Because when I forget, excitement used to have was on on the sea and the seashore on the you know, beside that. So stay used to get loads and loads of timber and anything else flammable. And keep it up to make a bonfire and then we check in as many passive 10 As we can light it and then and then skapar run away from the blast because these, these bras are tense because they were tightly closed. And because of the fumes. So I'm gonna spit your head, say your scarf, like a psychomotor bump. So as you run back to the village, your TV's going back. And then as the bonfire crack through the flammable stuff, you get another one to go off. And then you'd go home and your mum was set up in the shouldn't be that disturb the neighbour? Yeah, no, that was a different way. But again, he will say, No, I was just gonna say is really lovely hearing about your early life because it's a part of your life that the only way that I can delve into it is you reliving it by telling telling me and also other people that are interested. And I know a lot of people have been listening to these podcasts and are asking us to do them a bit more regularly. So I think we need to make a commitment to do at least once. One every month. Yeah, so that that'd be good. And I think it you know, like you were saying memories like that. I mean, we've probably some of our relatives like Uncle John, who died a few years ago, his 100 and he was he was a healer, he remembered so much of what we're taught in the early 1900s. So maybe we'll start something and get ebonized to do things like that courage, and, you know, people to look at nature, for example, and more deeply, but also to look back on their le see what relevance is to life and Pandemic like this, you know, with all the pressures that people have, probably particularly the young people to keep afloat and just feel mentally healthy. But yeah, the other thing I think just to before we say cheerio dad, I think the other thing with this podcast is to encourage other people to do this to speak to their mums and dads and and to record it even if you don't Put it up on a podcast. Yes, it's so important isn't it to, to, to know your, your parents history really, you know and to it's little things. It's not just the big things, you know you've lived a very rich life all over the world. But these little things, these early parts of your life help to fill in parts of the jigsaw that were before my time about what has made you who you are, why are you so passionate about the things that you are? And listening to you today has given me such a such a, you know, it's a richer insight into into you and your you know, and your triggers, I suppose. An exciting thing as Jen, we can go and visit. Exactly. We have recently when you were last that we did go and visit Kingston and some of your old friends are still there, which is which is really nice to be able to go and visit them. Yeah, exactly. So we'll do that. We'll make a plan for that. When we are released from our from our bond digit moment. Exactly. seems to be going on for an eternity, doesn't it? Yes, it does. But we'll get through it. Everybody. Just think well, we can do. I mean, I think a lot during the pandemic, a lot of people are doing things wouldn't otherwise have done. And that's I agree that I agree. Well, we probably I think we did start this just before the pandemic but not long before. Yeah, yeah. So Right. Well, in, we're off naff Christmas. Yeah, so. Well, I'm off for Christmas. So let's do another couple of podcasts over the next couple of weeks. Yeah. Okay. All right, dad. Say you'll be off off for a cup of coffee in a mince pie now no doubt our coffee enemas has been also a drop bhavini which you said me thank you very much. Kind of being cast. Melby 14 years old. Oh, you like that? Just don't drink it all at once. Dad. recording anything? No, that's for sure. Right, Jenny? Love you and we'll we'll talk. Probably Christmas day. Yeah. Love you, Dad. Love you too. Bye. Bye. Bye bye.