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The Sealed Knot - History

The Sealed Knot crest

The history of the SK goes way back to the lat 60's/early 70's, when Brigadier Peter Young (with several medals to his name that I can't remember) put together a small display that showed the methods of handling weapons of the Civil War and the uniforms worn. A few people thought that this seemed like good fun and it grew from there. Next they're trying out simulations of the battles of the day and from there it grows into a society that, by its 25th anniversary, has over 6000 memmbers.

As far as Fraser's is concerned, it was started in Inverness in the mid 70s, including the infamous gang of 3, plus Butty, Ian Fraser and Calum Davidson. When the 3 came to Aberdeen they recruited Andy West and myself, and we recruited more of our friends. In the time that I was involved we saw the regimental numbers go from about 10 to about 50 at its peak, although a few of those were children who didn't really take any part.

Over the years Fraser's have had many commanders, Ian Fraser, Butty, Pete Mearns, Fred Kelly, Pete Martin (Mess) and Alisdair McRae. Some were good (Pete, Fred and Pete) and others were less good. I never had a chance to experience Alisdair's leadership, but I'm sure he'd make a good leader.

I actually had to take command of the regimente on a few occassions. I'm afraid that I wasn't very good at it. It's surprising how easy it looks from the ranks... Then again, I never had any training for it, one of my continued gripes, so that's perhaps not unsurprising.

We used to hold 'meetings', i.e. piss-ups, every 2 weeks when at uni, and often, later on, when outside as well. These were pretty drunken affairs, and really good fun as well. One time we were in a pub (Ma's, in Aberdeen) and Andy can't make up his mind what to drink. I'm buying, so he just told me to get something different. He got a vodka in a pint of water!

Some of the best evenings we had were in the Bobbin Mill, Cameron's Inn (Ma Cam's, or just Ma's) and the Borve Brewhouse. The former two were in Aberdeen, but the Borve was a small pub in the back of beyond in the north east of Scotland. They brewed their own ale in the back, and sold it in the front. And superb stuff it was too! We used to travel for an hour just to sample the stuff. The barman was a bit of a character. Grodo overheard one person ask why they didn't set up in Aberdeen, as with the quality of the beer they'd make loads of money. His response, 'Ach, I just don't like people.' We were in his favor, because he knew we all travelled fair distances, just for the beer. As for the group that came in wearing 'shell' suits, his only comment was 'Oh, sh*t!'

My mind reels with stories and events in the pub, but I won't bore you with them. Like most of these stories you really had to be there at the time.