Mecca

My paternal grandparents were one of the first families from Aberdeen to have a holiday home, called Mecca, in Newtonhill pre World War 1. I have a photo of my father in a wounded soldier's uniform sitting at a loaded table in Mecca after his discharge from hospital. The uniform, he told me, was a blue suit, a white shirt and a red tie. Alex Fraser, a well known local artist and etcher (one time Principal of Gray's School of Art), was a relative of our family and had a studio in Newtonhill which I recall visiting as a child. Newtonhill was a favourite holiday place for our family and I remember very well buying ginger beer and sugar mice from Mr Milton's bakery with our Saturday pennies. Geordie Taylor's was the grocer's shop where we got paraffin for the oil lamps and we carried the accumulator to, I think, Reid's garage, on the main Aberdeen - Stonehaven road, for a recharge so the more senior members of the family could listen to the wartime news bulletins. The Donald family had the farm next door to the cottage and my younger brother and I made friends with the cows and the hens. The farm was later owned by "Jimmy Mac" and he allowed us to herd the cows from the field near the railway line down through the village for milking time. We felt very grown up.