NORMAN ALM, OLD SOUTH MANSE, ABERNYTE. 31 JANUARY 2011
IR: Right this is an interview with Norman Alm on the 31st January 2011 eh at his house eh next to the eh Scottish Antiques Centre. Now Norman, when did you come to Abernyte and why?
NA: We came in uh 1977 so that’s 33 years ago um and we came to Abernyte because we were living in Muirhead at that time we I moved to Dundee with my work um got a job in Dundee and we lived for 4 years um in Muirhead north of Dundee uh which we liked living there nice place to live um but it was kind of big round a busy road there and we were wanted to move further out to the country if that was possible but the real motivation was at that time we were really taken with the idea of growing a lot of our own vegetables, we were vegetarian so we thought wouldn’t it be great if we got self-sufficient in vegetables this was the era The Good Life was on TV and stuff so but we were thinking let’s let’s find a different house further out from the town if we have a big vegetable plot and we’ll be self sufficient in vegetables and this will be great. So that was our thought and so we didn’t ask for a lot of ground and we weren’t in a great rush because we were quite happy in our house in Muirhead and so we spent a couple of years looking and we saw various houses um round about and um none had fit the bill. We thought clubbing in with some other families and like making a little commune..very glad we didn’t do that that would’ve been a really big mistake uh but anyway we had this crazy idea that was going to work but that..so we looked at a couple of grand country houses really estates you know which you could buy three or four families and club together and thought we’re going to share the kitchen and stuff..stupid idea. So then we came across this place now this place was uh would have been beyond our stretch in terms of because of the size of the house um for us at that time um but we kinda lucked out because I reckon that the cost the value of the house was devalued quite considerably because what happened was this is a Manse this is the United Free Church Manse, next door is the old Church which became part of that complex which is now the Antiques Centre but at that time it was Stout Brothers Motors, it was a car dealership uh and they repaired cars and they sold cars used and new and um what had happened was that the family that had the house before us who’s Les Bowman who was a journalist with the Courier and his wife and his three daughters, they had the house for 24 years before us um and during that time the Stout Brothers business developed from nothing into a huge business and they watched us out next door, they were not pleased with but you know they rubbed along but uh but what happened was I’m sure the house would have been more expensive had it not been right next to basically a used car place, the smell of salt that’s coming with it, the rough language of the workmen so um we thought you know it’s a bit more than we can afford but what a fantastic house, the house was a bonus we wanted this is two thirds of an acre here so we wanted the garden but the house was just a fantastic bonus. You know I thought actually at that time it’s a bit early in life to have a big house like this we’re never going to want to leave this place you know (laughs). This is a place to retire to this is 30 years ago. So that was the story so we got the house to where we could afford it and moved in in 1977.
IR: Fantastic, anyway you’ve already said that you were in Muirhead before that um when you came here first of all how did you find the community?
NA: Um very friendly um we um one of the first things that happened to us was um that there was a uh the local minister uh Mr Campbell who’s now died he was a minister at the church he came round to visit us because this was his patch you know. Uh now we’re not churchgoers um but there was no problem whatsoever you know it was fine he was visiting us because it was his patch and he wanted to welcome us and so on and he was doing this sense of welcome so it was quite nice um then the next encounter we had was our kids started at the school and I’ve got three daughters and two were school age at that time they started school they moved from Muirhead Primary school which is a good school it’s a fine school um but there’s something kinda special about Abernyte school apart from the size because it was at that time it was bigger than it is now it was maybe 30 people now it’s down to about 20 but still it’s a 2 teacher school you know both excellent teachers and uh fantastic uh regime there, uh you know family feel to it and right away um we sensed that the quality of education the kids were getting was fantastic and they made a lot of good friends there um and um yep so that was those two things were the first things that impressed us positively so we quite liked that. Um I would say looking back now after 30 years here Abernyte has people often remark on this, has a remarkably um active um interaction between all the neighbours here which is very unusual for a fairly wealthy place like Abernyte has become, it’s fairly unusual people usually use their money to buy isolation from other people which is a bit sad
IR: (laughs) True
NA: But here I always think that Abernyte is full of people who are relatively well off on average I mean, but um behave like poor people, we know each other we’re all neighbours. Now at that time we first moved to Abernyte I wasn’t aware of that feature and I think that actually has grown up during the time we’ve been here because during our 30 years here there have been all kinds of things have sprung up. There always was the Women’s Club, uh there was a Men’s Club at one time and various things on the go but there’s since been the Heritage project, um the Wine Club, the band and all kinds of short term projects like the um embroidery project, the church and the Glebe walk and stuff uh and there’s a sense of um community here which I think my perception is that’s kinda grew up over the 30 years we’ve been here so um first impressions of course were quite positive
IR: So your your involvement in the village em did that evolve primarily through the children in school?
NA: Yes, as usual the kids were at school so we got involved with the uh school events and then we got to know the parents and some good friends of ours we met our kids were at school together you know. Um and like so many parents um when our kids left school there was a period of time there was a few years when um we kinda lost touch with people because there wasn’t a regular school thing around and it was about that time this various community things began, the heritage, the band, the wine club you know and that my perception anyway is that for me that plugged me right back in and I now know pretty well everybody in Abernyte who they are where they live whereas I think actually when the kids were at school I didn’t so I know a lot more, but yeah it was initiated at school yep.
IR: Yep and I believe you’re one of the founder members of Abernyte band
NA: Yeah the band began
IR: Were interested in music
NA: I think probably what happened was I started learning the fiddle at a very advanced age I just thought it would be fantastic learning to play the fiddle and I played other instruments before so it’d taken me a couple of years to acquire competence..completely wrong the fiddle is so difficult to play and if you don’t start when you’re 10 you’re never going to achieve unless you’re particularly good you know, uh a really good standard. But um anyway I was struggling with the fiddle and Sandy and um Anne used to play the fiddle in the past but they’d long since given up so they thought we could blow the dust of our fiddles and play along this could be kinda fun so we got together to play that’s how it all began kinda like that
IR: And that’s how the band started?
NA: It grew from us playing the fiddle together um and then gradually people got added to the group
IR: Who chose the name Band in Abernyte?
NA: That was my idea (laughs)
IR: (laughs) Right.
NA: Um and uh what happened was we um we just played for fun and gradually people joined and Moira is on keyboard she’s a good friend of Anne’s we have Moira through various Abernyte things she’s a very good keyboard player um and then um we had an accordionist join us, um Eileen Logie join us and she’s professional she could play professional and has done several professional loops, vast knowledge of Scottish tunes and very very capable and good and loud and the accordion come in and suddenly gave us a backbone and suddenly we were good enough to actually play for you know dances and things
IR: Gigs
NA: So we began to do so. So um we’re kinda on a pause at the moment because we lost Eileen she moved to New Zealand and we haven’t got another accordion player to replace her we really feel the loss of that so we have done gigs since Eileen left but we’ve always had to pull in an accordion player to sit in with us and we don’t have a permanent one so it’s kind of stopped that bit but um that’s kind of how it began. Um we still get together and play for fun you know and we kind of our we had one year the band where we had lots of engagements and we actually did a wedding you know a proper paid-for all-nighter all evening thing at the George Hotel in Perth and enjoyable as that was it was really like work you know it was really a long long night
IR: (laughs)
NA: You know I thought never again we don’t know the people, they were nice people but we didn’t know them and I thought you know I don’t like this this is not what I I didn’t sign up for this so we all try to keep it so that we come out for neighbours and friends or friends of friends sometimes and charitable things and maybe just perform three of four times a year
IR: And you also joined the Wine Club?
NA: Yep the Wine Club I think was started I think by Sandy and Rodney Berger way back um yep we were sort of
IR: How did you hear about it?
NA: Through Sandy um through the grapevine that this was starting up I thought it was a nice opportunity to uh find out about wine and I like wine but I have a the Wine Club to me I really miss the Wine Club and this year I’ve missed a lot because of various other things but I really miss it when I can’t go, the reason is and I drink wine at home uh the reason is because once in a while it’s a chance to catch up with everybody it’s like a little town square that’s the way I see the Wine Club..town square with alcohol
IR: (laughs)
NA: So it’s a chance to catch up with the gossip you know and stuff and I think the Wine Club is actually responsible for spawning a lot of things that have happened in Abernyte I mean the band grew out of the Wine Club actually we all used to go the Wine Club and then as I say we were meeting regularly and uh we discovered we were all re-learning to play the fiddle um and um lots of activities have spawned out of the Wine Club I think
IR: And you said you came here in ’77 and I think it was ’87 when they started the Heritage project with the book?
NA: Yes that’s right that was um that’s right. The first project the idea was to do a time capsule as I recall the idea was to do a time capsule which could be um...well Anne had a lot of material from the past which was great we had Katie Fogle’s book which is one of the first things, olden times and we were like great and we had this collection of stuff and then I think Anne had an idea wouldn’t it be great if we did something now for prosperity we left a record now what it was like living in Abernyte now and so it took us about 18 months to do it so by the time we got it done it was Abernyte in 1988, a portrait of Abernyte in 1988 and so it’s really interesting looking back we first produced that little book in 1989/1990 it wasn’t all that exciting to us but now it’s 20 years old you know and now it becomes interesting
IR: And say the first book that was for a 50 year period I believe? Or was that?
NA: No that was the second book , the first book was ‘Abernyte: Portrait of a Perthshire village in 1988’ that was the first little paperback book up there that was the first thing. The next thing we did was to try to do a history of Abernyte, a portrait a historical portrait of Abernyte in 1900 and 1950 and so and that was the second book which just came out a couple of years ago um yep
IR: Yep it’s given a lot of the village an involvement, many people are actually being co-opted either to or by the Heritage group to help out
NA: I think I said there’s lots of different levels you can contribute absolutely
IR: Yep yep and you said you heard about the Wine Club from eh Sandy?
NA: Yep yep
IR: Do you get there regularly?
NA: I do yeah I try to go every month but especially the last couple of years I’ve gotten a lot of work in a lot of other things I do which have clashed so I’ve missed more than I’d want to but I try and get to every month
IR: Mm now this is an old house, have you looked into the history of it?
NA: Oh yes yeah this is an old Manse um yeah, this house was built in 1850 uh and what happened was there was a well the history of the Scottish religion of course is that these splits happen from the Church of Scotland um so the Great Scism happened in the 19th century which created the Free Church which they felt was more pure than the, more uh tributary routes than the Church of Scotland at that time and there was a congregation uh there was two congregations around at that time there was the Church of Scotland and this other congregation which was the split off split congregation and I understand they met in a building in Abernyte village called the Tavern Apple yep which is a building they had there which I think they built just on the street, think it was off to the left as you go through Abernyte, course its long gone cause what happened was they then decided to build here a proper church and a manse for the minister and they moved all the stone down from the Tavern Apple to begin the process of building down here they built this place in 1850 and they built a substantial manse here which is you know the walls were 18 inches thick stone and quite a big house which is just about as big as the church
IR: And the manse and the church were built at the same time?
NA: Yup they were at the same time, this is the United Free Church um and that it existed as a church then until about 1929/1930 something like that and what happened was the congregations began to dwindle or the congregation began to dwindle in Abernyte and um there wasn’t enough to support the two churches so what happened was for a while..let’s get this right now..there was no energy, there was great collegiality between the two congregations got on fine and I think I’m right in saying that the Free Church people were able to share the facilities at the main church..no I’m getting this wrong. The congregation dwindled so they had to actually sell this building, the manse and the church to a family who were the Stouts who bought it, who bought the manse and the church came with it and that’s why and then what happened was the remaining Free Church congregation were able to share the facilities up at the Church of Scotland building after that
IR: So how long did the wee Free exist as a separate entity while they shared the building?
NA: Well I really don’t know um I don’t know, Hamish Carr would know that because I think he was baptized in this church he was baptized he might have been baptized when they were sharing the facilities. Anyway I think roughly the church and manse ran as such in 1922 to about 1930s so what’s that 8 years and then from roughly 1930 into the 30s it kind of tailed off the Free Church congregation and there was just the one congregation now
IR: And when the Church and the manse were sold you said the Stout brothers
NA: The Stout family yeah
IR: What did they, did they use the house?
NA: Yeah well the Stout family bought it the Stout family consisted of the Mum and Dad and two brothers, uh Marcus and um Stuart Stout. And um all I know is that the Stout brothers the two brothers Marcus and Stuart began using the church building as a site for repairing tractors and uh doing various mechanical work repairs for the farmers round and abouts. Um and also I think they ran a uh I understand they ran a car hire..a bus hire business from there buses used from the school and various things. So they ran a business from there basically which began small and gradually developed and developed and developed and became eventually a very large and well known establishment which is
IR: So the wee Free Church was actually the start of Stout Brothers?
NA: Yeah they did their repairs in that building and they gradually built on and acquired more farm buildings and built on these farm buildings between that complex next door
IR: And did they then move to another house?
NA: Yep eventually they had grown up, their parents died and the house then moved to the Bowman family I thought when they bought it um but and I think they bought it in the early 50s which is about the time the Stout Brothers were taking off and the brothers were getting established and had their own houses elsewhere. So the Bowmans came in in the early 50s and Les Bowman and his wife and his three daughters uh one of whom was called Laura which one of our daughters is called Laura and they had the house til we bought it in 1977 so that’s the whole history of the house actually and it was interesting when we came to look at the house, you get feelings about houses I think when you’re looking for a house and this felt like a happy house, a really happy house and we liked the people very much uh by that time Les Bowman had died and Mrs Bowman was selling her house because her daughters had grown up and left and she was going to be wanting to get a smaller place
IR: So the house was still being lived in when you bought it?
NA: Yep by Mrs Bowman just on her own because her daughters had all grown up and um we liked the feel of the house it just seemed to be a happy house and they had three daughters same as us one of them was called Laura which is a coincidence you know and we felt really good about it so it felt like it was uh we were very pleased to get it
IR: And how old were your children when you came here from Muirhead?
NA: Well I’ve got three daughters and in 1977 they were um oh gosh..10, 8 and 6 so and they all went straight of course to the primary school when we arrived and they all grew up here in this house
IR: Yes and they were involved in the village, I mean did they go berry picking?
NA: Oh yeah they did, potatoes as well but they certainly did the berries every summer um they got involved in all the activities in the school and so forth and uh they were a very active threesome actually
IR: I believe one of them actually washed cars for Stout Brothers at one point?
NA: Yeah she liked cars. Laura that’s our youngest worked for Stout Brothers she got that job..she wanted to be a motor mechanic and so she went over to start working for Stout Brothers and it was a team of women who did the cleaning who were uh and she worked for them for a while I think it was like a summer job and uh but she couldn’t stand it she thought you know I can’t be a mechanic and she wasn’t very professional she just wanted the job. Yeah she worked next door and uh Laura also ran with the Perth Harriers so that was a big thing for her during her secondary school years she was out running with the Perth Harriers and had a lot of friends there. But yeah they were very active and went about and made a lot of good friends here at the school
IR: And where are your daughters now?
NA: They’re spread all over the world um oldest daughter uh Sarah uh has married an American chap named Brian and they have a granddaughter Zoe who’s now coming up for 8 and they live in the West Coast of the US, recently moved to Salt Lake City actually and Sarah is an Occupational Therapist with the schools and Brian is involved in Sustainable Business that’s his line but that’s just what their real love and their real occupation is they’re both climbers out there, they’re both rock climbers and skiers and canoeists at a very high standard almost professional standard they’ve both done professional guiding to instruction but she can’t make a living of that so they both need indoor jobs so that’s what they do um and Melissa was, my little daughter uh was involved in theatre and uh was also a TV camera operator for many years in London um but she gave it all up and went to the Dominican Republic um to um follow her dream basically and she ended up living in the Dominican Republic for several years working for a property company there um and managing properties and managing staff but just living this idyllic life in the Caribbean um and she’s now she relocated to the States and she’s temporarily living with her older sister Sarah in Salt Lake City they live together, she’s moved in with them for the summer while she’s sort of in between phases of her life. Uh so they’re together in the States and Laura is our only daughter still in the UK and Laura the youngest is down in Devon in the South West, working at a Christian run dairy farm which is a fair community for people with drug problems it’s a very interesting place (laughs) run on a Christian line but she’s been there 10 years
IR: And I believe your wife is very creative as well?
NA: Well Denise is an artist uh to trade, I mean she um when I met her she studied painting at university she did painting and then she uh when we had the kids um painting was a bit too difficult to pursue in terms of practicality with three young children round the place so she went into crafts and she did a lot of craftwork and so she ended up she sold at craft fairs and then she did designer knitwear for a long time, uh individually designed jumpers
IR: And I believe she’s quite expert at printing as well?
NA: She does yes she’s done printing and uh all kinds of artwork you name it her latest things quilting actually she’s got into quilting now so she’s got a new sewing machine so she’s doing that now um and also laterally she had an injury uh to her elbow so she had to give up um knitting for a long time because the knitting machine was just too painful um and she got into complementary therapy so she trained up as a Reflexologist doing foot massage and she did that for many years until she was retired
IR: Oh and I believe your own career is quite checkered?
NA: It is quite checkered yeah I uh
IR: Before you came to Abernyte what did you do?
NA: Well I was..at the age of 35 I stopped worrying about the fact I didn’t have a life plan you know I thought you should have one but I’m not old enough doesn’t matter I’m just you know people usually have a life plan so I’ve no I’ve done all kinds of stuff I was uh I’m American originally but lived most of my life over here but I was raised in the States and uh went to University in the States, 2 years at California at Berkeley and uh my main subject there was English Literature closely followed by Chinese um and then when I left there I got a job teaching at a therapeutic community in Kent, in England for young people with emotional difficulties um and uh I was there for six years um and then after that came up to Dundee and that’s what brought us to Dundee was a job in the social work department in Dundee running or setting up activity centres for kids in trouble try to keep out of trouble and so I was in Dundee doing that for about 12 years um and then um I needed a big change of career because I was kinda stale and my hobby at that time was computing because computing had just come about this is in late 70s and I had one of the first personal computers and taught myself the programmes, disappearing every evening and programming and enjoying that so I needed to have a big career change and I thought and the girls were young I needed to support them with living so I thought you know I might get into computing so I went back to university and did an advanced degree in computing and then was lucky enough to fall in with a really interesting research group there, stayed on and did a PhD and just stayed on as an academic so the last 25 years I’ve just been an academic in computing um
IR: Do you do artificial intelligence on computers?
NA: Yeah that sort of stuff um but with an emphasis on applications for people with disabilities so it’s interesting it’s been fun for me because the last job I had pulled together all the strands because we were helping people who couldn’t speak to communicate so that brought in the language interest and the interest in language and then the social work stuff came in so we were doing something that could help people
IR: But computers and prosthetics?
NA: Yeah that’s the stuff we’re into um all of us the first bit of stuff that I did was prosthetics for speech. What we’ve been doing for the last 10 years has been even more interesting I think which is to try to find ways that computers can be prosthetics if you can’t think straight in particular uh we’re interested in dementia in people who have dementia and having computers support some of the activities they can’t do anymore through um giving them um support
IR: That’s fascinating
NA: It is really interesting
IR: Are you still heavily involved with that?
NA: Oh yeah I’m not retired officially..they tried to retire me twice they kinda succeeded! (laughs)
IR: (laughs)
NA: I’m now officially as of October I’m now on a pension that’s it um but what I’m doing to keep busy is we’re trying to set up a company um myself and my colleagues the last thing we kinda invented we think could really help people with dementia and we want a bit of software and we wanna get it out and we have set up a company with a view to marketing so I’m heavily involved with that uh actually as much as I was and still same 50 hour week I’m just not getting paid
IR: (laughs) That’s ok. Do you still do a lot of travelling?
NA: A fair amount yeah a fair amount um I did a lot of travelling because the research requires me to travel a lot which is one of the perks of the jobs to be honest (phone rings)
So I’ve had lessons I’ve stopped the academic research job but I’m still yeah I am I mean I’m going to uh I’m off to London next week to have a meeting about with the BBC about our company and um at the end of the month I’m going over to Japan because a couple of the things I retained was I still retained a visiting university research job at the University of Kyoto and so I’m going over there for a few days to do some seminars over there so it’s a bit less than when I was in full time research but enough to keep me on my toes (laughs)
IR: (laughs) When eh you’ve now been here for what 30 odd years?
NA: Yep
IR: What are your do you have any special memories eh or events eh in Abernyte that eh you think were memorable?
NA: Yeah well one of the first things that happened the first Christmas we were here we moved in just before Christmas and that Christmas uh our girls got recruited by some of the other kids um to do something that they made a bit of a tradition at that time which I think that doesn’t happen anymore but they used to go up and uh..I’d say they were about 7 or 8 or 9..10 maybe..they uh slept up at the Church on New Year’s Eve and rang you could ring the Church bell from outside and they rang the Church bell at midnight (laughs)
IR: (laughs)
NA: Just as a lark so that was a wonderful thing so that was quite fun. Then the uh we had a lot of adventures with our water that was my main issue in Abernyte when we first moved in was water because when we moved in to Abernyte there was not mains water it was all private water supplies
IR: You then were presumably on a field supply from David Sinclair which you were shared with others?
NA: No uh we were on a..because of historically the Church when it was set up here it organised a supply of water that came from..the same from a spring near where the village water supply but a different spring came down and fed a little reservoir which is on the edge of one of David Sinclair’s fields and it came underground all the way down to here three quarters of a mile um and uh but yes it did rely on the goodwill of all the farmers, David Sinclair in particular um and um one of the first things that happened to me here was within a few weeks of our arrival here a few months anyway a short time after that um I got a phone call from David I’d never spoken to him before he said oh it’s David Sinclair um he said look I’ve ploughed up your water supply um he said I’ve got the water agreement in front of me that was signed when the water was put into the Church and the manse and it clearly says it’s your responsibility to get it fixed and I said okay and I said who do you suggest I get in touch with about it and he said well the best person is named Fraser Lawrence who’s a plumber that everybody in Abernyte knew so I got in touch with Fraser and he said yep I’m afraid that’s right he said I can fix it up so he so David ploughed up the pipe he’d gone too deep with the plough so Fraser and I just fixed it, but I didn’t quibble about it that’s fine but I have to confess this was terribly naive and I mean my lawyers could have told me but I didn’t realise when we moved into the house I didn’t fully realise there was a prime water supply I never thought about it I should have thought about it um but it was um so we then went to the trouble to have the water tested just out of curiosity and the water came out top notch and very very high quality water with one exception the lead content was not great because it came through all that pipe, it was acceptable but you know not a good idea um so um then the water became a constant theme because it would freeze up in the winter and stuff and then um our particular situation was that the reservoir up at the Bergers’ house up there the walled garden at the edge of the Glebe, still there actually it’s a little concrete structure we called it the pakoda it was just a little concrete structure inside there’s a big old porcelain sink and a ball cock and it just controlled the water coming down to our house um after it came through the walled garden house the Bergers’ house um and it also at that time fed a tank for Davie’s prize cattle who he kept in front of his house and in order for the prize cattle to get the water they had to interrupt our water supply so his friend uh Kenneth Jackson had the house before the Bergers and he was a friend of Davie’s he bought the house for him there, he was also a retired farmer and Kenneth’s job was when Davie asked was to go up and put a broomstick in our um ball cock to divert the water supply to the prize cattle and cut ours off which is okay anyway we had a tank um
IR: But you had no warning?
NA: No we were never told uh it didn’t matter as long as Kenneth remembered to pull the broomstick out but occasionally he’d forget, he might go away on holiday and forget and the water would stop and we’d have to go up and pull the broomstick out and reset the water. Now we were surprised this was the case by uh..well I had a chat with the Stouts they had the same problem as well when they were living here and they used to send some of their mechanics up to deal with this so this was a regular feature so it made for interesting relations between us and the Jacksons you know
IR: (laughs)
NA: Anyway it worked out it worked fine except one day it really wasn’t funny we were days without water um and so what I then did was we put in four water tanks, our house has four instead of one it has four water tanks up in the loft
IR: Some weight
NA: Yeah some weight, it’s not a problem and that meant we could ride through any loss of water for days and days and days and days so that was fine. Of course that’s all been swept away now because um
IR: So Abernyte House, the Bergers and Stouts and yourselves were all on the same water supply?
NA: Yep then the next thing that happened was it began to leak like a sieve and really the water supply trickled down to nothing and made me realise how water is absolutely essential for your house the thing about water is you can’t live, you’ve got to have water um for toilets actually that’s the main use for water otherwise your house is not habitable so the old lead pipe just finally gave out so what we had to do then was to our own expense reinstitute alpecin pipe to replace the whole length so we did that some years ago so we paid for an alpecin pipe to go from here up to the main road up there and join in um and that’s still in use because that actually taps in the main supply up there just up at the edge of the Bergers’ drive so now on mains water so water has been a big issue for years, as it was for the rest of the village
IR: What about special events or functions in the village that eh you remember fondly or non-fondly?
NA: Um trying to think..just all the events I suppose the connection with the heritage and the heritage walks and the band performances and so forth have been great um..no nothing particularly comes to mind um no just uh no particular event no
IR: No particular events no no
NA: No, no just one long parade of things you know but
IR: Well water obviously seems to be a key part of the village life, the problems associated with it
NA: Yeah that’s right, that’s right
IR: I mean that quite nicely leads on to what’s probably the last question and that is since you’ve been here you’ve now been here over 30 years, what are the disadvantages of living in a village like Abernyte or in Abernyte?
NA: Hmm disadvantages..well when we first moved here we had three young children, three young girls very active young girls and we were aware that we were moving them from a place where they had easy access to their friends, easy access to after-school activities to a place where uh it was going to be more difficult. The first house we looked at in Abernyte actually wasn’t this one it was Dundriven that’s up at the Soutars now, we looked at that house but we couldn’t afford that one um but that was really quite remote, there was no neighbours up there and we thought you know if we’re gonna do this because Denise and I want to do it we have to agree and we did that we would become taxi drivers to the kids, let them still participate in after-school things so for a while that wasn’t a problem because initially we just did an awful lot of driving you know to make sure they could take part in various activities and they didn’t miss out on stuff um so um that was a slight disadvantage I suppose living this far out and not having we had no bus service you know
IR: What about shopping?
NA: And shopping yep and still like I mean I quite enjoy the walk up and I’ve done it a lot, just got off the bus and walked up you know takes about 35 minutes walk up the hill, it’s a little bit dangerous on a winter’s night coming up the bend round there you know with cars coming up so um but I’ve done it quite a bit and quite enjoy it but it’s a bit of a trudge and not having any transport here especially in the early days was a bit of an issue so we just had to become taxi drivers for the kids you know um
IR: What about were you here when the village shop was eh functioning?
NA: We were yes it was that’s right that’s right, I’m trying to think if we ever used it oh we used it occasionally I think but we didn’t depend on it I think there was a village shop there was regular deliveries which there may still be actually fish and various things but uh the shop was still there when we came it was Andy Miller who had the shop and that kind of closed
IR: I believe he also had a shop in Coupar Angus as well?
NA: He did he did that’s right that’s right. Um yeah I can’t think of any disadvantages you know um as I say slight remoteness in the sense for the kids you know um but it didn’t seem to bother them and we did a lot of taxi work and could take them down to the bus to see their friends and so on yeah
IR: So all in all you’re very happy with your
NA: We’ve been very happy, as I say my first impression was correct when I said you know this is kind of a mistake moving in to a nice big house like this because this will be the last move of our life you know we’re too young for that (laughs) so we just stayed on and the other thing is I kind of thought when the kids grew up we might downsize you know, we did plan that actually because that’s going to be ridiculous just the big house with the two of us so but then what happened was we were so fond of the house and we were actually very fond of the community and we liked the people in Abernyte we liked living and had lots of friends here and we’d arranged to move away from them so we thought you know well no we’re just going to stay you know we’ve got plenty of space and we can put people up and stuff so
IR: So although you were born in America you have no inclination to go back?
NA: No I mean this is home now this is home for us you know. We do go back and you know I do feel of two cultures in a way, even the US has changed in many and we’ve been away for 40 years and the US has changed a lot um so we’re kinda strangers there now too uh but still there are some things about American life for instance Sarah Palin I can completely understand her, I completely understand her. People are going to say how can this happen yeah I mean it’s appalling and I agree with I think Ruby Wax she said you know if the American people want her they deserve her you know(laughs). They can have you know, go for it! But I can understand crazy things about the Americans so but I uh this is this is home now and I’m very comfortable here. I’ll tell you an extraordinary thing this is something about the British I was always taught people can be concerned about immigration and whatever but of course I’m the right colour the right culture and so forth but I’ve never ever had it thrown up to me here that I’m a foreigner, never you know. I mean I’ve been involved in some controversial, my jobs are occasionally controversial so you know but people could have said what the hell do you know about it you know but no one’s ever said that to me here uh there’s been just an acceptance
IR: An acceptance
NA: I’m just one of the I’m a double citizen here I happen to be American originally which I think is quite extraordinary
IR: It is unusual
NA: Extraordinary
IR: Do apart from your daughters who are living there do you have other family still in the States?
NA: Yeah they’re dying off you know but we’ve got um folk in Los Angeles and um North Carolina now left you know, two different parts of the country um and um we get over to see them occasionally you know but uh I was quite surprised when two of my girls married Americans you know I thought because uh that took me by surprise I didn’t expect them to do that
IR: Have you looked at your family history to see if you actually have a family connection to Scotland in the past?
NA: Yeah I’ve done some geneology work and um being a computer person and kind of a sort of an amateur mathematician I take all this talk about geneology as a little bit phony because if you double a number again and again and again it gets so large it actually becomes huge. Now your ancestors double every generation that means you’d have to go very far back okay basically we’re all the same and for instance my name is Alm which is a Swedish name and people say oh you’re Swedish ancestry well not really actually, one eighth of my line going back is Swedish that was my grandfather who had that name and the rest is all kinds of other stuff you know uh so yes there is Scottish back there, there’s English and there’s um Swiss, German and there’s Swedish that I know of you know and then beyond that it’s all kinds..because Americans are all Mongols you know they’re all a mixture of all these sort of nationalities um so uh it’s funny because I’ve got a very good pal of mine that I worked with many years who’s a Scot from Aberdeen and he used to think it was hilarious to hear me singing Flower of Scotland or taking part in anything Scottish because he says you’re not Scottish and uh I went down..partly because of him I put off the day but eventually I wanted to get a kilt because I thought that would be great, of course I’d already gone myself because I didn’t care what he thought
IR: Which tartan?
NA: I got the Sutherland and the reason is because um I’ve got there’s the Ross family in my family, go back to the Ross family but I think the Ross tartan is very ugly I don’t like the Ross tartan and I realised it’s all kind of phony anyway because it was all 19th century tourist thing, these tartans are all um fairly recent anyway you know all interested in them so you might as well pick one you like you know it doesn’t matter too much um so um but then I discovered that the one I quite liked actually I also have a link to because my grandmother was um a Gray and the Gray family in fact was local here to Dundee uh and the Grays were aligned to the Sutherland clan so if you’re a Gray you’re entitled to wear the Sutherland tartan so uh
IR: I didn’t know that
NA: I quite like the Sutherland yeah yeah
IR: That’s fascinating that’s marvellous, I don’t think eh I can’t think of anything else eh to ask you off hand
NA: Okay
IR: Em but thank you very much
NA: Okay well I’ve enjoyed it. Yes good.