Alves man's book is a popular read

A MORAY man’s story of his colourful life, including a tough countryside upbringing, is proving a hit.

Norman Taylor’s book, ‘At the End of the Day’, is on sale in local bookshops.

Mr Taylor (76) signed copies when he travelled from his home in the south of England to visit family before Christmas, and said he was delighted with the interest generated.

“Not bad for a man who couldn’t read or write until he was about 20,” he said.

‘The Gazette’ has already told of how he came into this world “a very special person”, his mother saying he was born with a halo on his head.

“It was an unusual phenomenon formed by the afterbirth,” he writes.

“A ghost, a lady in white, appeared at the bottom of the bed, telling her that I was a very special person”.

Born at Garrowslack, near Alves, in March, 1935, he was one of seven sons to a horseman whose work took the family to many farms, including Garrowslack, Monaughty, Cloves, Stynie, Sweethillock, Auchenhalrig, Brodiesord, Alliesk and Alves. The continual flitting, said Norman, gave him little opportunity to learn anything “or how to read and write”.

His mother came from a fishing family and was part-gypsy. She had, says her son, a sixth sense and a reputation for reading fortunes from tea leaves. One of her friends was Gypsy Rose Lee, whom they would meet at local shows.

“She knew about the uses of herbs and natural cures,” writes Norman. “She would use horse liniment to treat the dog, and us as well if she thought we needed it.”

His mother was also a renowned knitter, and had the honour of making mittens and socks for the Jimmy Shand Band, “who gave us two complimentary tickets to a show in Elgin, where I shook Jimmy Shand’s hand”.

Norman could plough with a pair of Clydesdales at the age of eight, and he takes readers into the rural life of an age long gone.

“My brothers and I had to sleep in our living room on chaff-filled mattresses or palliasses which we made ourselves. The farmer supplied the chaff and we had to hope that he had not included any thistles amongst it.

“The mattresses were laid out on the floor every night and stored against the wall during the day.”

Unable to afford school meals at Alves Primary, Norman’s packed lunch consisted of dried bread and water. There was no butter or cheese during the war, but as a treat his mother would sometimes put jam on the bread.

Another school involved a three-mile walk to the bus stop, and if the bus was full, there were two more miles to trudge.

Sometimes blocked into their remote home by 25-foot snowdrifts, it was not unknown for the family to eat grass or the bark from pine trees, or to open fir cones and eat the seeds.

He had another ghostly encounter at a semi-detached cottage outside Alves. A young girl with black hair and dressed in a black cloak used to pass him on the stairs.

“I always thought she was a nun. I called her ‘Black Mary’. I tried to speak to her, but to no avail,” he writes.

“It gave me a firm belief in the existence of ghosts. My mother used to say, ‘the dead cannot hurt you; it is the living you cannot trust’.

Norman landed a job at Wiseman’s Nurseries in Elgin, where he met Bill Travers, later to be a movie star in ‘Born Free’. He rescued his colleague from a fire in a kiln, and sat by his bedside at Dr Gray’s Hospital, talking to him.

Bill was not expected to recover from his injuries, but he did.

Add to all this boyhood adventures of coming into contact with a prisoner of war camp; three German spies; being kidnapped by gypsies; the crash of a bomber plane, and carrying an injured monk – who had been attacked by a red deer stag – back to Pluscarden, and you have a truly remarkable read.

Norman claimed to be the first man from Morayshire to become a paratrooper, joining the 33rd Parachute Field Regiment Royal Artillery and becoming a senior limber gunner.

He drove buses in Scotland and England for many years, and also managed a hotel on the Norfolk Broads.

Published by George Mann Publications, ‘At the End of the Day’ is available in local bookshops.