More reminiscences.

First impressions of Forres not all rosy

The first time I set foot in Forres was in 1983. I remember little about the town except that on a shiny summer’s day it seemed rather grey and dour and there was nowhere to get a good coffee. I had been living for ten years in Brussels and the standard of food, coffee and cafe culture was such that few towns in Britain could live up to. I seem to remember going into the shoe shop because the children needed sandals (or was it wellingtons?) Anyway, again my continental experience had made me unprepared for the poor quality of goods available.

All in all then not very positive. The rest of our stay in the area was quite different. I fell in love with the trees of Cluny woods, the seashore, Findhorn bay and the river Findhorn itself. Most of all I fell in love with the fresh air and the skies. I had fallen heavily in love with Scotland on a too-brief visit to Skye in the 70’s and always wanted to live in the North of the North. This was my first return since that holiday and it only strengthened my desire.

It took me another three years to finally make the break from city life and move my children to what could be said to be their first true home - certainly their first truly healthy home. The eldest was just eleven, the second nine and the youngest eight. The two younger ones claim their memories only begin when we arrived in Findhorn. We lived in Findhorn village and they could run freely through the lanes visiting their friends. Later my son and his mate could sail across the bay and camp overnight on the Culbin Sands. They were out of sight but sometimes I could hear their clear young voices carrying across the water. A kindly elderly gentleman once sailed across to take them them some extra food for their camp. It was a ‘Swallows and Amazon’ childhood and I am grateful to have been able to give them that freedom and so many good memories.

We lived in four different houses in Findhorn and spent time between those houses in caravans on two different parks. I like caravan living. Even with a dog, cat and three teenagers it can be a restful way of leaving behind the demands of a ‘proper house.’ In a proper house there is a proper kitchen where the mother cooks proper meals. I like cooking but the relentless demands of three growing children was arduous to meet day in and day out. I was glad to have an excuse for picnic food and fish ‘n chips. There was no choice of take-away apart from the chippie when we first arrived. The sign of changing times came when a Chinese take-away of dubious quality opened in Kinloss. Nowadays when I walk into the garden of my house on a summer’s evening I can dine out on the cooking smells; Italian, Thai; Indian; Chinese. Kebabs. There is only one fish and chip shop in the HIgh Street now. Once there were two.

Shopping for food was what I found hardest for the first few years. There had been a wonderful choice of healthy goods in Brussels where not only could I find organic vegetables when they they were still just a joke in the Scottish newspapers, but I could easily source biodynamic vegetables too - the biggest and strongest and most tasty vegetables I have ever experienced, with an energising effect that I have never forgotten. It was said that after Chernobyl, when border checks were made on all food coming into Belgium to test for levels of radioactivity, the biodynamic veggies from Holland registered clear of it all. Their own life-force either absorbed or repelled the potentially harmful fall-out. No-one could quite explain it.

Even the hypermarkets offered good vegetables and beauitful fruit, imported easily by road from the South of France and Italy. I remember the peaches, plump, juicy and dripping, as they should be. I have stopped buying peaches in Scotland because they are such a disappointment, picked too soon and artifically ripened.

That’s a disadvantage of being so far North and must be accepted, but at least the local produce should have been good. I wasn’t impressed. Shopping for me was anyway something of nightmare. I had chronic asthma and frequent bouts of bronchitis which had began very soon after I arrived in the less than wonderful climate of Brussels, and become progressively worse over thirteen years. Little by little I got better in the clean air, but it was hard to walk through Forres on the frighteningly narrow pavements carrying heavy shopping bags sometimes with three jostling youngsters in tow. The greengrocer was especially difficult to negotiate, with a wire basket over one arm, shopping bags full with goods from other shops in the other hand, picking the potatoes, carrots, greens and fruit out singly to put in paper bags was a tricky shoulder-aching, back-breaking excercise. There was a nice fish shop in the town and also a fish van which arrived weekly outside our house but the selection was disappointingly limited. I was longing for some taramasalata which I had been used to making from fresh ingredients frequently. The fishman was surpirised but told me that yes, he could get some cod's roe smoked especially for me. When the grey unappetising lumps arrived tasting revolting and nothing at all like the pink shiny salty roe I had been used to dealing with, it was the first time I realised that Mediterranean cod is very different to North Sea cod and certainly the smoking process is different.

The butchers in Forres were good but my children where going through vegetarian phases (one still is) and anyway I had to readjust to the cuts - different in Scotland to England even, let alone Belgium. Basics where available, but there were none of the delicious cheeses I had become accustomed too (and so had the children.) No tasty fresh sardines in olive oil and herbs. No charcuterie, only ‘ham on the bone’ if one was lucky. A ‘delicatessen’ on a corner, still much regretted by many now, is not regretted by me. The range of cheese was poor and what there was was kept in the fridge - a crime against Brie! It was possible to get a tin of anchovies and olives of uninteresting quality butI remember little else beside Baxter’s soups, stacks of artery-furring shortbread and packets of boudoir biscuits. The big attraction, sending a promising aroma out onto the street, were the freshly roasted coffee beans. They were mightily expensive.

It soon became apparent why the Scots are the most unhealthy nation in Europe with most heart disease and the fatest women (so Chillsider could look for models here and find them everywhere. It might even put her off her theme after a while!) The local baker advertising its water paste pies (filled with baked beans and mashd potaoes, or mince and mash) its Bradies (something like a Cornish Pasty only flat and in fatty puff pastry) and its steak pies with a picture of a little boy biting into one of the delicacies with the slogan: 'Say aye tae a pie) above his cheery face. In their lunch break the Academy students foresake the healthy Jamie Oliver style lunches and wander into the town to partake of these pies. My son in his turn did too. However he had a healthy veggie-rich diet at home to make up for it and lots of physical excercise.

All these details I retain and when the locals grumble about the supermarkets I defend them strongly. With the arrival of William Lowe my day-to-day life brightened. An excellent choice of good foodstuffs, easy parking, a trolley to put everything in so no need for straining shoulders, and no need for burning lungs getting it all back to the car. Not all change is bad!

There is some resistance to ‘incomers’ amongst the older indigenous population but I have seldom felt unwelcome. This area has been home to th RAF since before WW11 (It did morph into a naval base for some years after the war but was taken back by the RAF in the 70's) therefore has learned to accept foriegners. It has also been home to the Findhorn Foundation and although they have not been so easily absorbed as the boys in blue (the military is more normal and acceptable) the locals have had to adjust to their presence and have done so more or less graciously. I’m told (I can’t have personal experience of this obviously, only through my own children have I heard) it is easier for an English child to go to school in Forres than in Nairn. We moved for a short time to Aberlour and my eldest daughter went to the Academy there. She had a VERY hard time with her crisp English voice. She had just managed to make a friend and to overcome the problems when we moved again. Poor child, she was understandably angry with me for that!