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Tuesday, December 14, 2004

The Countesswells Hermit

Now for my second Aberdeen Tramp or Weel Kent Person, I could have gone for someone easy to describe... but today we were talking about how much we'd all love to just quit the rat race and go off and be at one with nature.

I think that in most cases this meant opening an organic brewery, or perhaps moving out to Strathdon or wherever and raising chickens in a cottage, cackling and having 15 cats. I just wanted to be a Hermit.

You know. I'd need a shack in the woods... An outfit made out of dead rabbits and some dog shit to throw at anyone who attempted to integrate me back into society.

Then I remembered The Countesswells Hermit!

The Countesswells Hermit is gaunt and leathery skinned but I feel he is a very learned man.

Most days he walks down the Countesswells Road, past the Seafield shops and towards Mannofield Church. There, behind the dyke near the new houses, he will find himself a spot on the grass, sit down, lean back against his enormous backpack (which may contain all his belongings but I would prefer to think contains the secrets of the universe) and here he reads the Press and Journal (or the Peenge as it's known in my social circle) or a large book, the cover of which is as leathery as his skin.

He walks everywhere. He is very fit, sometimes he is gaunt. He often walks all the way in to town. I've seen him in the central library,. Looking at newspapers and books.

He has stubble, he has cloudy spectacles. He holds himself humbly.


Where does he live?
What's in the backpack?
Why does he do it? Why does he live the way he does?

The world needs Hermits.
Some day I may go and join him!

posted by Aberdeen Tramps | Tuesday, December 14, 2004


17 Comments:

Blogger Aberdeen Tramps said...

no no!
he's a completely different story. i have his entry already written. just waiting to get a few tramps down before i start on the ither weel kent fowk...

December 16, 2004  
Blogger Aberdeen Tramps said...

That's the one!
He sits just up from the Mannofield shoppies.

And there was an old tramp used to live out Countesswells under a tarpaulin about 30 years or so ago (according to my dad).

January 10, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

He stood behind me in the queue at Sommerfield once and he was having a full on argument with himself. He was going on about someone stealing secret information and files..... Shame

September 09, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This guy's name is Sandy. He is an extremely experienced mountaineer / hill-walker and he lived rough, through choice, long before any supposed afflication beset him. His experience of the outdoors, as his hobby, equips him well for the life he has chosen. The man likes how he lives and he poses no threat to anyone. Aberdeen is enriched by people like this!!People who choose to be different.

October 01, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The guy's name is Sandy Sands. He was friends with my mum's sister when she was in college. My mum's sister is a nut job, she may have driven him to it... I have also nearly run Sandy over on 2 seperate occasions on the way back from work!

October 22, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

his name aint sandy, its clive. he was an ex uni proffessor before he went nuts. he live in a wooden shelter at the top of countesswells in a small patch of land. his family have his big house on queens but one day he chose to live outside his house but residents complained so he lives in the wooden shelter.

November 21, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Look his name IS Sandy right! Dont know where you got your information but it is complete nonsense.

November 29, 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

If he is who I think he is, he has an old black bicycle, one of those cast iron ten-ton jobs, and is indeed very weatherbeaten. He does sometimes park said bike in Thorngrove Avenue, opposite Somerfield in GWR. I know not of his origin.

June 25, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I know of him as clive as well, but I can't remember if we got that from somewhere else, or it was created by myself and friends to give hm a name.

October 10, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

He is spotted fairly often on countesswells road and around the Airyhall shops (where I have seen some of the managers in Somerfield getting a bit agitated with him)

A few years ago we used to often see him out doing paper rounds, where he stopped to tell us strange stories that went nowhere and rambled for a while, nothing overly threatening or harmful (though you are still usually uneasy in his presence, especially when younger), but quite sad

Supposedly from a well off family (and often seen with his shopping) - he chose to live outside through choice or the odd result of an arguement/feud, I don't know for sure, I have never seen him begging or anything and he has been living out there a long time and is seen with his shopping wandering about

October 10, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I used to work as a groundsman at Robert Gordon's pitches at Counteswells, and for anyone who thinks this guy's just chosen an "alternative lifestyle" I can tell you categorically he hasn't.

He is absolutely barking.

We had a few "conversations" through the fence, where he expounded his theories on the underground lizards that control everything, and how he managed to escape prosecution for child molestation by turning back time and erasing the CCTV footage. I swear I'm not making this up.

He would arrive opposite my work at the same time every day, finish off a bottle of wine and sit and rant. Very eloquent, quite well spoken, clearly very imaginative, but totally insane.

April 04, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

hes called clive, extremely intelligent man and master of the outdoors.

August 25, 2008  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

He has a bike. A rickety looking object like something from a Hovis advert. Hs is really well tanned and wears what looks like old NH glasses. He looks like a bit of a dude.

March 12, 2009  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Interesting. I would have to agree with the former groundsman above. I used to see this chap now and again (cropped grey hair, brown leathery skin, round specs, tall, gaunt with backpack - right?).

One day I was sitting in a car near the Rendezvous Cafe, with the door open. He came along and started ranting at me - not in an agressive way, he just wanted to get something off his chest and I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

From what I recall he made very, very little sense and was quite disturbing. He has obviously lost his mind, he is not some kind of alternative lifestyle convert.

May 17, 2010  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Does anyone know what happened to him - haven't seen him on Countesswells Rd for at least a year. Cracking site by the way.

June 03, 2010  
Blogger Doug Daniel said...

I used to work in Lawries on Queens Road when I was a student, and he used to come in and buy tobacco every now and again. He certainly had a very smoky smell about him, and his glasses had seen better days. Always used to mumble to himself, but never ranted at me or anything like that, although I do seem to have an image of him having a full-on conversation with himself before leaving the shop one time.

August 10, 2010  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"homeless jack" is the guy, never had a bike or glasses. Suffers post traumatic stress disorder from military service.

December 20, 2010  

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