A TRUE SCOT

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 4, 16 January 1942, Page 5

A TRUE SCOT

MEMORIES OF CALEDONIA

LOCAL RESIDENT'S STORY

Living quietly on his farm, in Stewart Street, Mr Kenneth MacKenzie wlm for many years was known as an employee of the County Council road .staff and the Main Highways Hoard, could tell many a tale of his adventures in more youthful days. Born in Ross-shire in the shadow of Ben Nevis, Mac was one of a family of nine sons who were reared on a croft (small farm) of acres on Lord Lovats Estate— the Laird who owns the whole of Ross-shire. For this privilege the family paid an annual rental of £3 5/-. Compared with Colonial conditions it would, be considered impossible to make a single man's; living, let alone raise a family on so small a plot—but Scots are hardy. Ben Nevis was within sight of the humble home, and sulnmer and winter was always capped with snow, despite its bare 4000 feet. Life was hard and simple. There was work for everyone, and yet of the nine sons, Mae -\vas the smallest of the family and he's no midget. His father 6ft -finches, who is still livon the old farm at the age of over ninety. As a young man, Mac of Stewart Street, took a leading part in Highland sports and at one time., was champion for the East of Scotland for throwing the hammer. Of the nine Mackenzies, seven joined the. Police Force. Mac himself was in the Birmingham Force, but later enlisted in the Coldstream Guards. It is interesting to know that the Coldstream Guards gained their singular title through an incident dating back as far as 1660, when the regiment was then General Monk's own Regiment of Foot. General Monk marched from -Edinburgh to Buckingham Palace to restore Charles 11. He crossed the Border at a placc called Coldstream, and the regiment thereafter took its name from this feature of its historic march. In the' days before 1914 there was • uch an exodus from the Highlands of young men who f|ed from poverty that the live Highland Regiments had waiting lists of recruits, •:o many enlisted in other regiments and wore the l "trews." As a soldier of the Guards, lie saw service throughout the Great War. find was one of the eld Contcmptibles, who fought in the early Belgium campaigns, and went through the 1 historic retreats for which the first British Expeditionary Force is justly celebrated.Little did young MacKenzie imagine when he left his Highland Glen nearly 40 years ago to see the world that he would eventually make his home on a "croft" in Kopeopeo. His few acres and stock are in some ways like his father's croft in Rossshire, where they grew great crops of oats, and apples with no grub p€*sts. and where crofter families visited each other o.' nights with melodian, fiddle and bagpipes. He recalls that when Lord Lovat went grouse shooting, the whole of the countryside used to. turn out and act as 'beaters' for the sportsmen. Another side of their life, was the necessity of going out at night when the crops were coming on, with lanterns to frighten off the deer, who had a Tine liking for the turnip crops and the like. Memories of Auld Scotia are well stored in the mind of her representative in a far land, and the local Caledonian Society could not do better than to get a recital from a real Highlanedr on one of their forthcoming ni'chts.