It was quite deafening really. The silence. Peacefully deafening, and I was totally absorbed in it, a
million miles away. It was so unbelievably beautiful it wasn't real, and to think I was working at the
time, too! Silent and beautiful - and for a wee while it was mine.
Silence. Then, imperceptibly at first, growing slowly louder, I heard it - a dull, strange noise. Whump!
Whump! Whump! Then quietly, almost in slow motion and with utmost majesty, he came gliding round the
lee side of the heather-covered hill I was perched atop. He flew just beyond arm's length. I could have
touched him. He sailed effortlessly across the strath in front of me, disappearing into the distant
mountains beyond. He hadn't seen me- I hadn't moved since I'd parked my arse deep in the heather
waiting for the next drive to begin, enjoying my piece and jeely sandwich and flask of hot tea. He was a
full grown goldie, a golden eagle, and the glen he flew over was just one of many I'd trudged through this
particular August in the high Cairngorm Mountains in Scotland.
Yes, I was hard at work, if you could call it work. They paid me to do this, although it was a nominal fee.
A few quid a day, but for a lad on summer holidays in Scotland it was just great. I forget what year it
was, around 1961 or '62, but I was up in Scotland for the summer hols with my aunt. She was cook to an
English lord, Lord Glendyne, and I was working for her as a scullery boy. For those of you who are
unfamiliar with what "being in service" was, or what a scullery boy is (he who works in the dishwashing
room scrubbing pots and pans), the PBS TV show Upstairs, Downstairs explains it very well. My aunt and
I, in fact all our family, both paternal and maternal, were on the "downstairs" side of life, definitely
"below the salt." But that was OK. We were happy enough and I was especially so at this particular time,
sitting in the heather. I had just been given my spot on line for the first drive of the afternoon and had
been watching the line string out and the gamey (gamekeeper) disappear over the last wee hillock when
my goldie came flying by. The weather was fantastic for Scotland and I was really enjoying the last few
minutes break before we had to start off again and drive the puir wee birdies awa' tae the butts o'er
the hill. "Butts" in this case means a blind for shooting from, like a duck blind, only these are built from
blocks of peat and stacked up like bricks, and could not be seen by the wee birds until it was too late.
It was grouse hunting season and all this ftm traditionally started on the 12th of August, which was
known as The Glorious Twetfth.
The gamey's whistle blew, telling all us beaters to get aff ye'r duff and get tae work! Instantly, all the
silence and stillness had gone. Where once I had been the only soul on the hill, there were other beaters
to my left and right. Local chiels (lads) and quines (lassies) of all ages, but mainly school kids and a few
farm hands like Big Geordie who'd never missed a season n his life. To all of them I was known as the
Sassenach frae London, even though I was as Scots as the rest of them. Well, Scots-Sassenach. All of us
had oor wee bit stick wi' oor wee bit flag on the end o' it, and all of us were there at the behest of the
guns. "Guns" in this context means not only the actual shotgun, but the folks who wielded them. We, the
beaters, beat the heather with our flags in order to frighten the wee birdies out of their hiding places in
the deep heather, and drive them towards the gentries' guns. There they were summarily slaughtered and
collected by the gamekeepers and gentries' Labrador retrievers. For the dogs, this was what they were
bred to do, but you could tell it was great fun for them, too. Sounds barbaric, doesn't it? But it does
keep the numbers of grouse under control, as there are no natural predators in Scotland to do it any
more. It also provides work for the gamekeepers and underkeepers, who are stewards of the land and
who keep track of the grouse and deer population year round. And it provided a paid day oot o'er the
hill for the likes of my fellow beaters and myself. More importantly, of course, it gave those above the
salt some sport and fun for the season, and plenty of after-dinner conversation - leastwise until deer
hunting season came along.
So off we go flapping the wee bit stick and not seeing too many birds come up. It was more of a pleasant
hike in the hills. It was Lord Glendyne's land, this beautiful, treeless, heather-covered moorland that hid
the wee birdies that were the object of this whole activity. The drives lasted about an hour on average
and would entail some heavy hiking, especially in the real tall heather. Trudging through thigh-high
heather was absolute drudgery. When wet, it soaked you through and through, making walking difficult;
and when dry, great clouds of pollen dust rose up to choke you. Once I was absentmindedly beating the
heather when a young red deer fawn suddenly bolted right in front of me. I'd practically stepped on it,
and it scared me near to death, but it was so beautiful to see nature this close up. The fawn did not get
shot and had the sense to run away from the butts. However, some of us beaters weren't always so lucky.
When we got closer and closer to the gun butts, the hunters were supposed to wait until the birds had
flown over the butt, then take their shot. This was purely a safety precaution to prevent any of the
beaters from being shot. However, there were a couple of times I heard the pitter-pat of shot
spattering all around me and felt it tear through the flag. (I think Monty Python's sketch of the gentry
shooting themselves in various body parts kind of sums up some of the "bright sparks" that got to handle
twelve-gauge shotguns out in the wild highlands!) Still, no one actually got shot all the times I'd gone
beating. On the very rare occasion someone did, the gamekeepers would go ballistic and chew the
offending gun up one side and down the other, regardless of their exulted station in life.
After the last drive of the day, everybody piled into Land Rovers and buggered off home, wherever
home was. For me this particular summer it was the home of Lord Glendyne. Lord Glendyne was a
multimillionaire, whose father had invented the post office savings stamps that children bought as a
savings vehicle, and later redeemed for cash. He was a very wealthy gentleman, in the true sense of the
word, one of the many gentry who were swarming all over these heather-covered hills. (Actually it was
folk o' my ilk that did all the bloody swarming o'er the hills.) The wee English lairdie wasn't as young as
he'd been and to get to the butts in safety and comfort he had bought himself a Norwegian 'Sno-Cat.'
He and his guests could be seen gadding about the hills in this bright red civilian tank, driving sometimes
at ninety degrees to the horizontal over seemingly impassable burns (creeks) just so they could get in a
grand day's sport. Yes folks, this was, and to my knowledge still is, the way the gentry while away the
hot (or wet) August days in bonnie Scotland.
We, the great unwashed, on the other hand, were not driven around in such modem convenience. We got to
ride in the back of the gamekeeper's Land Rovers, along with all the retriever dogs and the other
beaters. This was especially joyful on a typical Scottish summer when it would just pour down with rain
for days on end. You've spent all day in the wet heather with the dogs and then get to ride home with this
bunch of wet, stinking canines with their hot, stinking doggy breath; wet, sweaty beaters and
gamekeepers; several hundred dead grouse; and blood and guts and mud on the floor of the Rover. I just
bloody loved every minute of it, rain and all!
After spending a wonderful day on the hills, I then got to gut and clean all the grouse they had shot that
day. Then in true scullery tradition, I got to clean and shine all the pots and pans used in the preparation
of that evening's six-course meal, the main course being roast grouse. Then we'd do the whole thing all
over again the next day, and I loved it. I used to go grouse beating with my dad around the hills and
glens of Strathdon, Aberdeenshire, and I made several good friends over the years I spent as a beater.
As I said, I loved it and couldn't get enough of it. It was a great way to spend a summer and get paid to
boot. Each year we always looked forward to The Glorious Twelfth, whether above or below the salt!
Must be the Jock in this Cockney, eh!
