Local heritage has always pulled at me. I’ve never been interested in giving a full life history of “Jock Bloggs,” but I love taking a wee bit from Jock, a wee bit from Bob, adding a sprinkle from Charlie, and setting it all in a time and place that lets us feel how folk lived. That’s the magic of heritage storytelling for me: it’s not about facts alone, it’s about atmosphere, memory, and the lives behind the names.

A Changing Landscape

I live now on the farm I was brought up on — a place that had six people working it when I was in Primary School, then only two by the time I left college, and now isn’t owned by us at all. I’m in one of the old cottar houses, looking out at fields that once held a whole community of work, laughter, and graft.

Those changes in agricultural life, and the way rural jobs disappeared, have shaped our communities more than we often admit. You can feel the shift in the land itself.

Language at the Edges

Part of why I do this work is to keep our culture alive — the language, the rhythms, the humour, the everyday details of where we came fa. As a bairn, I spoke far more Doric than I do now. But school knocked it out of us, and then the oil industry arrived with a whole new set of words and expectations. Suddenly we had “laundry” instead of “washin,” “market” instead of “the shops,” and “lawyer” instead of “solicitors.”

Doric never disappeared, but it certainly got pushed to the edges.

I’m not here to preach that everyone must speak Doric all the time — I ken fine I don’t manage that myself. When I worked in middle management in Edinburgh, speaking Doric would’ve been pointless, so my “proper voice” now comes out sounding more like Edinburgh than the North East. That’s just life. We adapt. But we can still hold on to what matters.

The Stories We Risk Losing

Working with places like St Peter’s Heritage Centre, Glenesk Folk Museum, and soon the Tolbooth Museum has made me think a lot about how quickly memories disappear. The stories our relatives, neighbours, and workmates carry — the wee details, the feelings, the daft moments, the heartbreaks — these are the things that bring history to life. Without them, stories lose their colour.

One of the biggest challenges is finding a way in — a way to get these stories told, listened to, and passed on between generations. Sometimes it’s as simple as starting with something ordinary:

“I had a shop-bought birthday cake. Granny, fit kind of cake did you have as a child?”

If I had a grandchild — which I don’t — my answer would be: We didn’t have birthday cake. We had a clootie dumpling with coins hidden inside. And just like that, the magic begins. Imagine hearing the story of the dumpling steaming away, the smell of it, the thrill of finding a sixpence. That’s heritage alive and breathing.

A Fast-Moving World

The world around us is changing — environmentally, politically, socially. The speed of it has us gaining, but we’re losing too. Contentment feels rarer. We talk about stress, about not keeping up. I’m not saying we should go back to tiny schools with mixed-age classes, but I am saying that the sense of community from those times is worth holding onto.

Passing the Torch

Once these stories are discovered, retold, and recorded so they can be heard again and again, they become a legacy. But that only happens if we help young folk engage with the craft of storytelling. Like anything worth keeping, it needs the next generation to pick it up and carry it forward.

Maybe that starts on TikTok — I surely hope not, but if that’s the doorway, then so be it. Time will tell.

For me, recording memories, capturing voices, and weaving them into new tales is where storytelling, heritage, and community meet. And that’s the work that keeps the past alive.