James Pirie News

Many of us will remember the Radio 4 series of You’ll Have had Your Tea with Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden, the Scottish comedian. It was the doings of Hamish and Dougal and it was a skit on the thriftiness of the people. All very gentle stuff. I had the privilege of sharing a meal with Mr Cryer not so long ago when he was on tour with his old friend Colin Sell, an old pal of the missus. He was an...

When you go out for a walk are you looking to discover the past, or just have a gentle ramble in the hills? Well one detectorist has a firm answer to that and it’s the first one. He’s pretty lucky too. In the Borders he’s discovered two hauls of 3,000 years old Bronze Age booty. The latest treasure was only 7 miles away from where he discovered the so called “Peebles Hoard” just 6 years ago. This new...

I’ve written before on the crackers world of whisky connoisseurship where rare examples of the golden nectar are sold for humongous amounts and the worldwide thirst for the unique is unquenchable. After the world record for a bottle of the honey coloured fluid sold in 2023 now a rare bottle of Scotch whisky from the same tiny batch has been sold for£2.1m by an Edinburgh auction house. The event was...

Do you like oysters? They can be a bit of an acquired taste, which can be translated as nobody likes them.  But sometimes I do and a friend carries a tiny bottle of hot sauce to have with his wherever he goes. Mind you he lives in France where such things are not so unusual. I was therefore interested to find out that some oyster beds which had been lost to the swirl of history have now been rediscovered...

A flag was raised on North Ronaldsay last month to tell all the locals that the first baby to be born on the island in more three decades had arrived, leading to a few drams being shared by the happy islanders. It was the first baby to be born there since 1992. The new arrival will be called Duncan and he has both a Scot and a Costa Rican for his parents. Births are usually handled off island, but...

A friend’s mum was once Sean Connery’s girlfriend in Edinburgh, he’d been a milkman and body builder but he had got his big break and was asked  to move to London. He asked her if she’d like to go too, but she didn’t want to leave Scotland so they split up. It was also ironic in that she met an Englishman, fell in love and moved to the south of England anyway. But they both maintained their contacts...

Times change and times remain the same. It was ever thus. There was the tradition of courting couples, forbidden by families or guardians to marry  that they would run away to the Borders and marry over the blacksmith’s anvil in Gretna Green. But with the change of technology from horses to the horseless carriage the practice of Smithing was lost from the village about 150 years ago. But now after...

With the summer starting to be an image in the rear view mirror we can turn our thoughts to comfort food as the seasons move again. And what could be more comforting than the nation’s favourite potato cakes? Some call them tattie scones, but if you aren’t so aware of them I thought I’d bring a little floury joy into your life with a recipe for the little belters. The cake or scone is an unleavened...

The scorching days of the summer has started to fade, but will the experience of the heat wave change our habits and instead of spending our holidays in the warmer zones of Europe will tourists now choose to head for our cooler climes. Will the  so called “Coolcation” be the way of the future? If you can’t stand 40°C and more then the swap to the highlands and lochs makes sense. Would you like to...

Now amongst the finest horror films with a Scottish location and theme is the doughty favourite The Wicker Man which first hit our cinema screens in the early 1970s and which despite modest success at the time has grown and grown over the decades into a cinematic icon.  The film was even more of a horror to make and its stars were not always paid by the director Robin Hardy. The Wicker Man is a...