The Fetterangus Stewarts
Most of the information in this and following pages about members of her family is drawn and quoted from Elizabeth Stewart's autobiography. She says her great grandfather, Donald, a champion piper, had married Margaret Hutchinson who was from Buchan. His ancestors had said that the Fetterangus Stewarts ‘stemmed fae Appin, whaur they were travellin tradespeople, silversmiths and craftsmen, servin the clans an providing them wi weapons an swords’.
The generation before Elizabeth – Jean, Lucy, Ned and others - were born in Stuartfield. The family moved to Aberdeen then on to Fetterangus. Their parents, Jimmsy and Betty, would pack up in summer-time, headed for the country and set up camp. Betty would go out to the farmhouses with her pack on her back, while Jimmsy set out china for sale on their carts. Betty would sell clothing, bedding, clothes pegs, needles and pins, buttons and old clothes for patching, often being paid in foodstuffs.’
'Efter movin tae Fetterangus my grandfather worked the croft at 14 Duke Street. There were stables at the back o the hoose, as well as an area at the side that wis used as the campin ground for other Travellers. My grandfather worked the land, and grew corn an sic like tae the side o the croftlands. There were often three horses, some hens an ducks, an even a couple o gaots. As well as this, my grandparents hid a huge rag-store an Auld Betty wis the main source o the gaitherin o the rags, which in maist cases wirna exactly rags but good clothin actually.
'She wid set up her cairtie a horse, by hersel maistly, in the early mornins and set oot for the surroundin country-hooses an villages, fairms an cottages, as far afield as the outskirts o Peterhead, as far as Crimond, St Fergus, aa roon that area. She wis a cunnin dealer an nae-one could cheat her, she wid have [the total price] worked oot in a jiffy in her heid. But at the age o sevety-two she wis struck wi a lorry while oot wi her horse an cairt, an that eventually killed her. [As was the Traveller tradition, all her clothes were taken to behind the stables and burnt.]
Travellers cam fae near an far tae oor campin ground at Duke Street. They came firstly because they were allowed tae set up camp there . The music o the Stewart family, an the fun that went wi it, wis the biggest attraction. They would have big pots of stews an soups cookin on the fires till aa hors of the nic ht, an aa the time they wid be sinin an playin music, storytellin, an even dancin.
'When Travellers were out in the country sellin their wares, an they'd been tae a place whaur the folk wir good buyers, then on leavin the place they would tie a rope or stalks from the cornfields round a post or a large stone, or mark it wi chalk.
FROM EDWARD STEWART
I well remember the time Kenny Goldstein spent in the Buchan area with his wife and two daughters. He spent a lot of time in the home of my Aunt Jean and her sister Lucy, talking to them and recording them. Sadly most of the people he recorded are no longer with us. During his time here Kenny made copies of all the recordings and I distinctly remember Ewan McColl receiving a version of "Dainty Davie".
Present-day site of Stewart prefab at
27 Gaval Street.
