Alan Croxford
Cruden Bay.
By Alex. Inkson McConnochie.
CRUDEN Bay! How strangely the name sounds to one who knew it when, in a manner, it did not exist. True, there has been, of course, “time immemorial” a bay at Cruden, but the Cruden Bay of holiday resort is a recent discovery of the Great North of Scotland Railway. Many of us can hark back to the Ward of Cruden—that fishing village on the Water of Cruden at the north end of the Bay. The Ward was not content to lag behind its fellows, and so the lord of the manor was “approached,” and it blossomed into Port Erroll. Then fortune promised to smile on it and its cosy, tiny harbour; but those were the days when trawlers troubled not, and the line fishermen dreamed not of the hauls that awaited big nets. The Post Office, that conservative institution, recognised the change, and so Port Erroll was added to its long list.
But a greater change was impending: the railway company made a branch line from Ellon to Boddam, and Cruden Bay station was in everyone’s mouth. And not content with thus startling the fisher folks, the directors, recognising the value of Cruden Bay as a place of both popular and aristocratic resort, courted success by erecting a stately and comfortable hotel, visible alike to the wayfaring and the seafaring man.
The example thus set was not slowly followed by others interested. The Ward is still there, and Port Erroll shelters a few fishing boats, but the bay and its links are now the attraction, and villas are year by year being erected for those who settle down for the season, and the “Port” boasts the Kilmarnock Arms. Then when the fishermen set sail with wives and weans to Peterhead “for the herring,” their houses need not stand empty during their temporary absence.
We remember our first visit as though it had been last week; alas, ’tis over thirty years ago, and much water has flowed past the Ward since then. We were a happy little party, just the proper number, and that is three. That figure is not the usual one in such circumstances; but when you have as chaperone a young matron who smiles on her charge—why her company really gives zest to the excursion. We had wandered to the coast from a neighbouring parish, and we were hungry. We thought we were strangers in a land where no provision was made for visitors, but fortune was kind throughout. We stumbled on the worthy fish-wife who at intervals, creel on back, made business calls at Parkbrae, and by her were entertained to a sumptuous banquet of tea and speldings. Such speldings are almost unknown now; speldings, unlike Loch Fyne herring, are not to be found in menus, but were their price that of salmon or sole they would rank high.
The feast over, we visited Slains Castle—whose lord we had read had for next neighbour on the east the King of Norway; we explored creeks and gullies; we circumambulated the Bullers of Buchan, and wound up our visit by chartering a leaky boat for a voyage of discovery in the great “Pot.”
A generation had passed away since our day at the Ward; we returned, but it was to Cruden Bay. The speldings were not forgotten, and it was probably because they were unattainable that we longed with a great longing for them. But we “took our ease in our inn,” and were quite equal to the many good things which were set before us. Are we not all luxurious—when we get the chance? There is no call in this country for a man to eat his soup in a bleak wilderness, or wrestle with an ancient fowl in the muir. Our friend Jones is one of the truest philosophers we have had the honour to defeat at golf; what is his greatest enjoyment when he puts his philosophy and his clubs to one side? Eating a good dinner in the company of a beautiful daughter of Eve, with the great ocean in front. Failing sea, he is content with a river, backed by such alps as the Highlands can produce. Truly a man of simple tastes!