Give Her Six: A Distillery Manager's Son in 1960s Bruichladdich

By Graham Logie

Graham Logie was brought up in Bruichladdich in the 1960s. This book tells how, as the Distillery Manager’s son, he saw village life, and the special access he had to the distillery.The 1960s probably saw one of the biggest changes to island life when the constant stream of supplies provided by much-loved cargo boats, mailboats and puffers, was replaced by roll-on/roll-off ferries, virtually overnight. Many tales involve boats, lorries and the sea, and show how different a child’s upbringing was then, compared to today’s technological age.Inspired one day, when asked what it was like to be brought up on a small island, Graham decided to record his thoughts and memories as they shouldn’t be lost to the island.Many tales describe what he and his peers did in their childhood within the village, and periodically Graham digresses to explain how people, boats etc, turned up again later in his life. Concluding the book by comparing life in a distillery in the 1960s, to life 35 years later when he returned to Islay in 2006, as a Distillery Manager himself (albeit on the ‘wrong’ side of the island); Graham has given a very personal account of island life through a boy’s eyes and his affection for Islay and Bruichladdich in particular are evident throughout.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brown Dog Books
• Release date: Sep 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9781839526855

Book preview

Introduction

Having been inspired by other books about tales of Islay life, I thought I’d offer my memories of my childhood in Bruichladdich from 1961 onwards, not only from a child’s perspective, but as the local Distillery Manager’s son.

From four to fifteen years of age, it’s not just a view of island life, but very much centred in the village itself.

Every decade will have it’s own unique differences and ways of life and I just feel fortunate to have grown up witnessing very different periods before and after the introduction of roll-on/roll-off ferries.

Life in the early sixties seemed so straightforward and uncomplicated, with a much slower pace and great freedom for children around the village, and indeed in workplaces like the distillery, the pier, coal yard, and crofts.

I also had quite a unique opportunity to return to Islay to work at the same job as my father, but at a different distillery many years later, only to leave the island for a second time, after experiencing how much distilleries and distilling companies had changed.

In today’s age of electronic games and mobile telephones that occupy youngsters, I’m sure readers will be surprised at what simple lives we had as 60s children and how we never became bored with simple pleasures like sitting in a lorry all day or helping on crofts or boats. One thing that became apparent to me when making recollections, was that we never disobeyed anything we were asked to do by any adult in the village. We certainly weren’t cheeky to any of the men in the village because if they didn’t give you a clip round the ear, they’d make damn sure my parents got to know about it. Again, being the Manager’s son, Dad always had high expectations of me and hated the thought of me showing him up.

I enjoyed some of the research involved, especially around boats that were our lifeline for many years. No-one could help falling in love with puffers, each one having it’s own characteristics. My own favourite was the ‘Raylight.’ As you’ll read later, the title Give her Six stems from the shout from puffer deckhands when they wanted the winch operated at full speed. As children, we didn’t really have any idea where puffers came from, who loaded them, where did the cargoes originate from. We just knew that as soon as a speck appeared on the horizon at the mouth of Lochindaal, they were coming to Bruichladdich, and chapters in the book will tell of our involvement with them.

We’ve all heard Dan McPhail’s song, sung on the ‘Vital Spark’ about ‘The Crinan Canal for me’. Again, as children, none of us appreciated that such a feat of engineering as the Crinan Canal existed to ease the passage for such boats, sailing from the Clyde to the islands, bypassing the heavier seas off the Mull of Kintyre.

While researching some dates proved extremely interesting, I was also saddened to read of the fate of a lot of boats that had become household names to us.

My biggest regret is probably finding out that, after her service to Islay, Jura and Gigha, the mail boat ‘Lochiel’ had been converted into a floating restaurant in Bristol. I had so many opportunities to visit her during part of my RAF career in South Wales, practically an hour’s drive away, but I didn’t think to enquire what became of the boats and had just never appreciated that there was a life for them after serving us.

Even more surprising was reading of some boats who either perished, or went on to give long service in some very unexpected parts of the world such as Honduras, Spain and the Greek islands. We just seemed to think of them as ‘our’ boats.

In writing about village life, I also wanted to show what small differences and opportunities arose being the Distillery Manager’s son. In those days, distilleries were the sort of focal part of villages and the Managers were in a pretty responsible position within the community. The vast majority of employees of distilleries lived within the boundaries of the villages so really, work and leisure time were very much connected.

I did get more access to the distillery than other children and my memories proved invaluable in later life when I became a Distillery Manager myself. Visitors on Islay, and whisky enthusiasts I gave presentations to around the world, were always fascinated to hear of traditions and family history, so talking of my childhood in Bruichladdich gave me a lot of credibility and folk wanted to hear of such connections in what was (and sadly isn’t now) a very traditional industry.

I remember giving my first whisky presentation in Japan in 2003. Totally untrained, just thrown in at the deep end, and accompanied by an interpreter, I rattled off a ninety minute talk on the brands, tasting notes of the whiskies and the production methods unique to each distillery.

Afterwards, I asked our company’s local Tokyo marketing manager if he thought the presentation was what he wanted from me, and he said it was OK.

I thought it was better than OK, but he explained that if I wanted to do a ninety minute presentation in Japan, and I wanted the full attention of every attendee to totally buy into it, then the first twenty minutes has got to be about me. Only then would I be accepted and listened to intently. So having such strong distillery connections throughout my childhood in Bruichladdich fascinated the Japanese who then just wanted to absorb every sentence.

While not wanting to slate the multi national companies that own huge parts of the Scotch Whisky industry nowadays, I know they offer huge opportunities around the world, and reading my company’s career website, I could have plied my trade in Australian rum distilleries, African Guinness breweries, or Californian vineyards. Similarly, when a visitor steps off a bus in Scotland, they can be greeted by a manager or guide of any nationality. Great fun for those who seek to venture, but having been immersed in traditional whisky culture since the day I was born, I find it terribly hard not to be very disappointed that this romantic industry has moved on.

In one chapter, I refer to a whisky podcast I made during Feis 2010. In it, I mentioned that my father only ever saw one career path for me, and that was as a Distillery Manager. Of course, as a young man, I thought I knew better so after a couple of years as a distillery warehouseman, he mentioned about me starting to move up the career ladder, so his hot headed son left home and joined the RAF. Of course, after I finished my twelve years service, I couldn’t wait to get back into distilling in my own time and at my own choice, and eventually I got the Manager’s role that he sought for me.

It was a very proud time for both of us when he visited me at Talisker Distillery on the Isle of Skye in 2002, and it was my turn, as Manager, to show him round, before his sad passing in 2003.

One thing I never imagined, and never anticipated was the extent of copyright law. Writing this book took practically three weeks, although nobody saw much of me in that time, but tracing photographs and their owners easily took up another three months of my time. I just have to say how indebted I am to people, museums, historical societies etc that rallied round me to help without any thought of financial gain. Interestingly, I was astounded at how many contributors, after they’d cleared it with me to use their pictures, then recalled stories of their own experiences of holidaying and whisky tasting on Islay.

Although the title of my book refers to my childhood, I took the opportunity to finish with some tales of me returning to Islay when the opportunity arose for me to be transferred through my work.

Distilling life in the sixties and the noughties is like chalk and cheese but I am glad I experienced both.

Chapter One - The Move

Prior to our move to Islay, we lived at Royal Brackla Distillery, south of Nairn. My Dad Peter, Mum May, big sister Patricia (Tish) and I lived in a distillery cottage at the road-end leading into the distillery, beside the very picturesque distillery dam.

Apart from a short spell in National Service with the Royal Navy, mostly in the Pacific Ocean, Dad worked in distilleries all his life, starting as a stoker at coal-fired Benromach Distillery in his native town of Forres. Perhaps due to his spell in the Navy, and seeing so much of the world, he was always ambitious and wanted to better himself. Distilleries of the day had much larger employee numbers than nowadays, and there was much more loyalty to companies and distilleries, so vacancies were few and far between and the way to get better paid jobs and promotions was not to be afraid to relocate.

His first move was to Glenlochy Distillery in Fort William, followed by a further relocation to Ardmore Distillery in Kennethmont, south of Huntly, before returning to Morayshire for a production shift job as stillman at Brackla.

Consequently, and probably unusually for the majority of families, myself and my two sisters were all born in different parts of Scotland (Forres, Aberdeen and Glasgow) when Mum and Dad were based at Fort William, Kennethmont and, eventually, Bruichladdich respectively.

Mum, originally from Elgin, became quite quickly used to the lifestyle of moving every few years and the neatly stacked pile of wooden tea chest boxes in our various sheds over the years was testament to her organisation for every move. She always talked fondly of everywhere they’d lived, even rainy Fort William at the foot of Ben Nevis, where they shared their first marital home. It’s always easy to think that your parents know everything,