Grampian Curiosities

The book is packed with stories about strange and extraordinary things; there is the story about the Queen’s dwarf who jumped out of a pie and the farm with a museum in its farm buildings and a ruined castle in its garden. Then there are the mysterious lums (chimneys) near Tomintoul and the Aberdeen restaurant that came to be known as ‘the Monkey House’. There is the intriguing story of a bird that wrote a book about the Indian Mutiny, and another tale about the Soos (airships) that operated from Buchan during the First Word War. Then there is a little-known poem about how Aberdeen faced bankruptcy. There was a scandal of another kind when the Great Haircut Riot hit the city and out in the country there were eerie happenings on a farm called Bloody Brae. But on a cheerier note you can laugh at Mr Nisbet’s Twisters, or read about the great Salmon Dinners, or gasp at the sight of a giant on Deeside. All this, and much more besides, makes Grampian Curiosities the ideal companion to the North-east and a source of fascinating information that has never found its way into conventional history books.