A different view of the Kittybrewster Mart
Claire MacLeary (Leopard, August) gave us a flavour of the Furniture Sale days at Kittybrewster Mart before Aberdeen and Northern decamped to Thainstone.
But the broader story of the markets at Kittybrewster is a more pungent one – less to do with antique furniture than with skittery coos and skirlin pigs.
Mart Day on a Friday brought the rural North-East to the city, farmers heading for the sale-rings while their wives jumped on the No.7 Woodside tram as it shoogled down George Street, towards that famous institution, Raggie Morrison’s (where Marks & Spencer is now).
Shopping over, those women had their denner at Isaac Benzie’s and headed back to Kitty, still with an hour or two to spare before the man-body was ready to go home.
By the late 1930s they could spend it in the scented splendour of the Astoria Cinema, just over the dyke from the Mart where, largely starved of tender love, they could act out their fantasies in the arms of Clark Gable.
On the other hand, in a corner within the grounds of the Mart, those ladies could sneak surreptitiously into the gypsy caravan of Madame Veitch and have their fortune told. They said she was amazing. A woman can dream, can’t she?
Long before we had heard of Mrs Robb from Midmar, catering at the Mart was in the capable hands of Miss Steele, another institution.
I sampled these outings during school holidays in the 1930s, when my father, John Webster the auctioneer at Maud, joined his colleagues from all the North-East branches of the Mart to take to the rostrum and roar themselves hoarse once more.
Aberdeen & Northern Marts was, of course, an amalgamation of three companies: the Central Mart, at the foot of Great Northern Road, and the two family firms of Middleton’s and Reith & Anderson, all within a stone’s throw of each other.
But Kittybrewster now fades into rural history, a memory of solid farm folk in hairy suits, flat bonnets, Steenhive pipes burning Bogie Roll – folk with a dry humour and sound judgement who might now be an amusement to the smarter suits of our so-called sophisticated society.
Along with the authentic tongue, the essence of that rural scene is drifting away. It was hard-working, genuine, contented and memorable. But life must move on, they say. And they call it progress.
Jack Webster,
58 Netherhill Avenue, Glasgow G44 3XG