Newtonhill & District Village Association

I used to live at Cobbleboards Farm. We went as far back as my great grand father, we walked around Cran Hill down to the shore up through the village to Cairnhill school. Miss Reid was our teacher as was headmaster Hastings. Our father used to deliver vegetables around Newtonhill on a Saturday with a pony and cart. We also had our meal ground by Eddie the miller by the viaduct. He also built a water wheel and we generated electricity for Cobbleboards - that was in the fortys. Also on the walk around Cran Hill we would dig up arr nuts and eat them you just have to recognise the leaf.

Yours Truly, Duncan

Here I am at the other side of the world, a long way from Muchalls and Newtonhill. When I first knew Newtonhill it was only a small village a little bigger than Muchalls. In fact I remember having arguments on the school bus on the way home as to which was the bigger! Now there is no competition as Newtonhill is almost part of Aberdeen and Muchalls remains virtually unchanged - except for the street lights added in the early 70s.

New Zealand is a country of climatic variation. Where I live, in the Auckland suberbs of the North, it is sub-tropical. I live around a rain forest. Today in mid February the temperature is around 27C with over 60% humidity. It rains a lot but the sun shines every other day, even in winter. In fact the winter here is much like the summer in North East Scotland. In South Island the weather is even warmer in summer but colder in winter. Temperatures range from mid thirties celcius to around zero in mid winter.
The mountain ranges of the south are called the Southern Alps and are much higher on average than Ben Nevis.
It has a Scottish feel to it however and many ex-pat scots live there including some of my relatives in Invercargill.
A long time ago my own father came out here and stayed for six months before leaving for personal reasons. He never stopped telling us about New Zealand and now I know why.

The poeple are friendly, the food of good quality and the weather is great most of the time. New Zealand also produces some of the worlds best white wines. When you live here you begin to miss some of the things about Scotland however - the accents and the buildings to mention but a few things. The buildings here look less permanent and most are made of wood. For the climate they are ideal.

Yes I miss the North East, the Muchalls rocks and dramatic cliffs. The time of the harvest and the smell of the countryside.
I miss Aberdeen, Stonehaven and my relatives and friends. However, the life here is more than compensation.
I now work at a New Zealand University and despite all my education, reading and researching, the mystery of the Muchalls UFOS all those years ago remains unsolved. I still talk to my sister about the whole episode many times on the phone.
It was very much part of everyday life in our early teens. I used to study for my O'grades (and later highers) and then go outside later to see them hovering over nearby farms and woods. We would watch them for hours on end and wonder...
Eat your heart out Mulder and Scully - we beat you by 30 years!!

I attach some pictures...

This is a pic of the garden of the house I live in. Here we can grow almost anything from grapes, olives,
oranges and lemons, grapefruit and all manner of vegetables.Native palm trees are the norm in this part of West Auckland.

This is the bridge in South Island just outside Queenstown where bungy jumping was invented!

These are pics of my (soon to become) New Zealand wife Jude and myself standing next to the foot of the Fox Glacier in South Island.
   

Here is a pic I took of the lake and mountains when on holiday last November.

See details of an old Skateraw family at
http://www.familytreemaker.com/users/c/h/r/Stuart-Christie/

My name is Robert Kinahan, I've never lived in Newtonhill but my family has strong ties to that area as my Grandmother Mary Masson was born there at 35 Skateraw on April 23, 1887.
http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/k/i/n/Robert-J-Kinahan/

Regards,
Bob
Denver Colorado

I was born in Aberdeen, but raised in Newtonhill, I loved Newtonhill. But in 1998 when I was 13, I moved to Canada, stayed there for one year, and then in 1999 I moved to Houston, Texas, USA. Which is where I am now. I have missed Scotland so much.
I was feeling really home sick today, so I thought I would look up Newtonhill on the Internet and see if I could find some pictures, and sure enough I found your web site. I was so happy, more than you could believe.

I was wondering if you have any-more pictures of Newtonhill? I would love to see them. It would mean more to me than you would ever know.

When I was in Newtonhill I lived in 60 St Ternans keep. I loved that house! From what I hear from my friends in Newtonhill is that Newtonhill has become much bigger since '98.

Any-way, It would mean a lot to me if you replied.

Thank You
Chris

Found your site while browsing love the picture of the village and the wave sounds, better than the postcards they sold in Mabels..... Nice to see that not much has changed.......except the number of houses......33 on the old school site.....must be building them on top of each other........"For Sale - 33 homes all with sea view ! ! !" A big hello to all our friends: Sorry no photo but we left Newtonhill 2 years ago now to go on our grand adventure of living and in George's case working in Baltimore MD USA.

So far we are enjoying every minute of it especially the weather. Sure beats the old sea haar!!!! We stay in Bel Air which is north of Baltimore and the girls attend school just up the road, certainly a lot bigger than Newtonhill school in excess of 500 pupils and that isn't that big!!, which they are enjoying . We of course miss our friends but have been good at writing and keeping up with people. So know about some of the good nights out that we are missing. The who want's to be a millionare sounded a lot of fun.

We welcome emails from people back home to keep us up to date with what is happening and promise to reply to any we get

thanks
Maureen , George, Jill and Ellen

Hello,
I'm a descendant of a long line of Skateraw fishermen. I've recently published a site about the genealogy of Skateraw, http://enkel.com/skaterow. It is not yet complete but I have bought the CD of the records for the Episcopalian Congregation of Muchalls and am entering a lot more information daily. The records are a great help in tracing people before 1841, the year of the first Census.

There are many researcher like me around the world that do ancestry research but in fact know very little about the village and the conditions in which our ancestors worked and lived. Sadly this knowledge is hard to find and getting more so as there are not many people left that can give us an accurate picture on how people lived. If there are any descendants still living in Newtonhill I'd love to hear from them. What I would love is that someone could write to me about village everyday life (as early as possible) that I could include on my pages for everyone to read and become more knowledgeable from.

To give you an idea of what I mean I've written a sample of questions. What did they eat? What did they do for entertainment in the spare time they had? What games did they play? Until what age did the children go to school? What sort of furniture did they have? What were their beds made of and what was the bedding like? Was there a central meeting house within the village? What was the amount of rent paid by the tenants and how was it collected? Did all the women knit? Was there one day that was set aside for laundry, or did they do it as needed? How far did they have to carry water? What chores did the children have? How did they get the peat for the fires? What did they grow in their gardens? What were the shops like if there were any?

Perhaps someone has a diary, or other publications that chronicle the day to day lives of our ancestors. I would be glad and thankful to include it on my pages.

I would also be very grateful for any information as to how I can find a modern map over Skaterow with street names and house numbers. I need it to identify the house in which my great grandmother and several other ancestors were born. Thank you!

Best regards
Susanne Enkel
Sweden

Hello Newtonhill,

Elizabeth, my wife and I were transfered to Aberdeen in 1975 and picked Newtonhill as our home. Mr. King bulit us a beautifull house in Croshillock Crescent, on the corner - the one with the arches backing on to the park. We left many great people behind and have often wondered how the village is doing. The village hall looks like it is still the same. We were transferred from Newtonhill to Toronto, Canada while I worked for Honeywell. The reason we lived in the Aberdeen area was because I was the system's engineer for Aberdeen University's computer center (Honeywell). While in the Aberdeen area we made many friends of the "Oil People" from Italy, US, Canada and England. The local doctor was our neighbour and across the road lived the "Frith" family, all great people. Before moving into our new house, Mr King put us up in a spare home he had, next to the pub
and across fron the railway line, very handy.

Would like to hear from anyone in Newtonhill to share memories.

John and Elizabeth Potts