| Jack Webster's Aberdeen. - Jack Webster. |
|
It used to be said, with a nod and a wink, that God was an Aberdonian. Personally, I feel that His horizons would have stretched a wheen further than that but it is self-evident that the granite city by the cold North Sea was never dropped from His agenda.
So dramatic is the city's 20th-century transformation that one could be forgiven for suspecting a touch of celestial intervention. The town was facing the slow decline of its staple industries of granite, fishing and textiles when, in the century's seventh decade, the sea gave up the secret it had held for millennia and, by surrendering its buried riches, transformed Aberdeen into Europe's oil capital with all the changes such a title brought with it, good and not so good.
Oil capital. A true enough description, though something of a cliché by now. There's a lot more to Aberdeen than simply playing host to a large chunk of the world's oil industry. Time for a fresh look at the place.
Step forward Jack Webster, the Buchan loon who is a journalist, broadcaster and author. Jack Webster's Aberdeen is informative, accurate and peppered with anecdotes.
And here lies the joy of this book. After all, a comprehensive history spanning the centuries from Robert the Bruce to Annie Lennox and beyond could so easily become tedious but Jack Webster never lets this happen. His enthusiasm for the city in which he spent his early journalistic career shines through.
There are fascinating little snippets throughout. Did you know that Fraserburgh once boasted a university? Granted, it only lasted about five years and it was a few hundred years ago, but still . . . a university.
The first qualified doctors in the English-speaking world appeared in the early 16th century from Aberdeen University. Ayrshire claims Burns as its own poet, but where did his father come from? Not Aberdeen, but just down the road near Stonehaven.
And surely everyone knows that Byron (real name, George Gordon of Gight) was educated at the original Aberdeen Grammar School. You thought "The Northern Lights" was an old song written by a Scotsman? Think again.
The sheer volume of information between the covers of this hardback is enormous and deals with every aspect of the city you can think of and then some - architecture, industry, the Press, education, the airport, entertainment, transport, football, golf, cricket, rugby, the Co-op, Charlie Chaplin (yes, him!), Scotland the What?, and much more.
Then, of course, there is oil. The black stuff that was to fast-forward Aberdeen into becoming the cosmopolitan city it is today. But not completely. Not when a lassie in a restaurant is overheard telling her companion, "Ach, I dinna like praans wi' ma avocado!"
There is still more than a trace of nostalgia for the bits that are gone: the cinemas (20 of them at one time), Isaac Benzies, the old Broad Street with its rabbit-warren P. & J. offices, Cocky Hunter's, the Athenaeum and the dignity that was once Union Street.
History, of course, is ongoing with every passing day but, for the moment and for some time to come Jack Webster's efforts should serve as one of the city's finer reference books and is by far the easiest to read.
Just one quibble. It's been many years since my Aberdeen journalistic days and the memory fades.
A map wid fairly hiv come in handy! |
|
|
|
