Ballater Victoria Week

I had a bit of a dabble in Ballater Victoria Week today – meant to go to a local history talk but unfortunately I missed it, but instead I dropped in to a lovely exhibition of local photographs, some as recent as last year, some George Washington Wilson and contemporaries, Victorian and Edwardian, and many in between. There were photos of butchers digging milkmen out of snowdrifts, fires, shopfronts with the staff all proudly lined up outside, school classes, pipe bands, family snapshots, formal photographs, Royalty (of course – this is Ballater), castles, ghillies, steam enginges and all sorts, mishmashed together in a billowing marquee on the green. Many had scribbles on them: ‘Jimmy Cowie and his brothers / friends?’ ‘Where is this shop front?’ ‘Muckle Wind 1953’ and so on, and the organisers, Ballater Local History Group, were ready to chat and glean further information about the people and places portrayed. 

When I had finished in there, I heard great hilarity coming from the other side of the road and joined the crowd to watch Rufts Dog Show – the agility round. Dogs had to run through a hoop, along a slalom of poles, over a low jump, and through a tunnel, before finishing on a podium (or upturned plastic trug). The owners were keen. They punted their dogs through the hoop, dragged them back and forth round the poles, jumped the low jump several times to show their dogs how to do it (the dogs chiefly went round the side), and in one case actually crawled through the tunnel with their dog, before lifting the animals bodily on to the podium. ‘Nae, that’ll no win,’ remarked the commentator, or, watching the woman disappear into the tunnel with a wriggling dog, ‘Man, that’s a sight for sore eyes!’ The best bit was the look of polite disbelief on the faces of most of the dogs as their owners hurled themselves round the obstacles. ‘Well, yes, if you want, you just carry on. I’ll be over here when you’re finished.’ There was also disbelief on the audience’s faces when one slim dog hit the course – through the hoop, into the slalom, over the jump, through the tunnel and straight up on to the podium. Gasps of wonder, followed by the commentator’s explanation that this was a Manchester Terrier, apparently bred for ratting by the Royal Family and given personal approval by Queen Victoria herself. ‘Aye,’ said the commentator after a pause, ‘that’s a gey auld dog.’

There was a town-wide scarecrow competition: I liked the entries at Deeside Books (Peter Rabbit)

and from St. Kentigern’s Church (Zacharias up the tree – last year they had Jonah and the whale).  

And at Deeside Books I managed to buy a couple of repro railway posters showing Ballater – who knows, perhaps Hippolyta will have a trip on a train some time in the future!