Small Town Girl

Kevin Bacon:
His Ma works at the new Asda...probably

It never ceases to amaze me that for the biggest city in the top half of Scotland, how little my hometown is.

No matter where you go, what you do…you will meet someone from your past, or someone who knows who you are, or at least knows someone you do.

It’s like that Six Degrees of Separation game played out in actual real life and not involving Kevin Bacon at any point. Unless Bacon went to Northfield Academy in Aberdeen (pre-Footloose, of course…he got the idea for that dance routine in the derelict factory in that film from the time him and his mates used to break into the Lawson’s sausage factory in nearby Dyce). *


This means a number of things for the Aberdeen dweller that seriously hampers their existence. (Though, I’m sure we are not alone in this phenomenon.)


Temper tantrums and hissy fits

You cannot fall out with anyone. You just can’t. One minute you tell your boss to “Go fuck himself” and run your keys along his month old Cherokee paintwork as you waltz out triumphantly out the premises for good....only to find that two years later he’s the bloke in the Pringle golf jumper your new fiancee introduces you to at Christmas with excited squeals of "you'll really get on with Dad...you're just so similar!"


Friends Reunited

Think you’ve left all those brats you went to school with behind? Well you haven’t.

There’s little point in joining any of these networking websites to find out if Joanne Nichols whose boyfriend you inadvertently stole and who subsequently took your head off the handrail of the school bus, has turned into a hacket-faced lonely old cow, with no friends and three children from four different fathers (it’s a guess for the last kid).

No, you won’t need to lurk on Facebook because the bitch will be standing between you and a mortgage at the Royal Bank of Scotland tomorrow morning's appointment. You’ll be able to see her in all her bloated glory face to spiteful face.



Chastity

No-one but no-one would be advised to cheat on their partner in this town. Not unless they want their partner to find out about it in a nano-second.

All it would take would be stolen dinner out in a quiet restaurant, to find out your wife's workmate's daughter had taken on a part-time wine waiter’s job to keep the wolf from the door. Of course, you won't know she's your wife's workmate's daughter, but she'll know you somehow....and she'll be on that mobile phone text function before you can say, "Discretion is my middle name".


Illegal activity

Any policeman who stops you from or catches you doing anything will have a connection to your Dad.


Baggage

Anyone you go out with, will have been out with one of your friends at one point. It’s almost unhygienic. You will need to move to another town to find an unsullied mate.


Nowhere to hide

Anyone you meet anywhere in the world from Aberdeen will know me, my husband or will know at least someone who knows us or has some connection to us. That same thing will go for anyone else who lives in this town. It’s just the way it is. We meet someone Meeester knows in just about every single country we've ever been to. And he's not even from Aberdeen, really.



You can take the girl out of the North East...

Annie Lennox is from Ellon, near Aberdeen where I went to school. I have lost count of how many folk I've heard say, "Aye, I kent her faither....." or, "I played in the school orchestra with her."

Aberdonians probably shout stuff at her at stadium concerts.

"H'min Annie! It's me, Morag...my Da kent your Da! "

"Hey Annie, it's me, Sandy! My Auntie, the dinnerlady gied you intae trouble when you were running in the school corridors. Remember me?"

And you know, she will, too.

Because up here,

"Abdy kens abdy else"

or
(for my international readers)

"Everyone knows everybody"

*Ok, let's face it Bacon will have a connection to Aberdeen in some way...everybody does. What's yours? Bet I can link your connection to me in some way