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I was surprised that my memories were so accurate as I found the house and track up the mountain immediately. My daughter and I walked up beyond the tree line and I managed to reach Little Oxen Craig where we had Aberdeenshire spread out before us. Patches of sunlight moved across the landscape. It was a moving experience. My daughter and I both love growing things. My father passed on his passion for the countryside, which is maybe why I remember Bennachie so well. I was surprised that my memories were so accurate. The only thing I got wrong was Mither Tap (which always had a hat of cloud) wasn’t where I expected it to be. These are scraps of memory in a moment of time.
Sandstone Avenue. All the outworks are fading, the light showing through They raised a playground from the spoil heap. The old place, you wouldn’t know it.
The rope, the ladder: the soft fort, the short landing on bonded rubber.
We are surrounded. Willow warblers sound the wood, slow our defences. The land where Flower Estate had been demolished looked bleak with gate posts sticking up through the undergrowth and debris walking up in the woods we found a burnt out car abandoned ever since we have been picking up scrap metal and glass from the hill.
Two middle aged ladies told me about playing on the hill as children one even showed me scars from the scratches she got from the bushes, she sighed because she wants her children to have access to a place to have fun.
Heat at a standstill; It burns in the stone bank, then abandons the hill.
Unspoilt early childhood memories of playing in the woods and quarry before link road was built.
I always dreamt I would get married at St Mary’s church.
If you ran round the tree twelve times at midnight you would wait for something to appear.
In the 70s some children were told that the church was haunted. Many of us weren’t brave enough to venture too close.