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Map of the north-east of Scotland

Fraserburgh, or the Broch, is where I was born and raised. It's not a bad place, really, just not very exciting, and it's pretty much always breezy. Not surprising considering it's surrounded on 3 sides by the North Sea. Those sea breezes really cut through you...

Historically a fishing community, it hasn't really changed that much in the years. The oil industry that was so instrumental in changing the nearby town of Peterhead (18 miles) pretty much passed Fraserburgh by. A large part of the community travel through to Aberdeen or the refining and power plants at Peterhead to work It has several outlying villages and the area is almost in a time warp, not much really changing. Part of the problem, of course is that it's very much the end of the line (literally in the case of the rail line that used to exist, and which I vaguely remember). No reason to go there unless to go there. It's a long detour to get to other interesting places like Inverness or Elgin, so tourists either cut across to MacDuff/Banff or even Keith from Aberdeen. Both these places have distilleries to visit, but Fraserburgh has little to commend it.

One thing it does have, however, is a beach, and a good one it is too. A mile or two of sand stretch around the coast to the nearby villages of Inverallochy and Cairnbulg, gently sloping into the sea, with dunes behind. I remember many happy afternoons down at the beach during the summer vacations. It's interesting how the cold winds and even colder water never impinged on my youthful memories of beach times, although I'm sure it hasn't got colder just in more recent times.

Fraserburgh has it's own soccer team, which plays in the Highland League, which covers from Aberdeen to Fort William to Wick. A couple of teams from the Highland league have moved into the main soccer leagues and are doing reasonably. Fraserburgh have done quite well of late, winning some trophies and pressing for the league title. I have followed the Broch for many years, attending my first game when I was about 6. I think it was against Huntly on a bright day, and we, my father, brother and I, sat in the right hand side of the stand. Well, it's the first game I remember, anyway...

Time to update some of the links on this page. Waves Radio FM seems to have sunk, but there is a new Fraserburgh web site. There are a few good places to visit, one of which is the lighthouse museum (or also here), which also has a nice cafe. The lighthouse used to shine into my bedroom window. Well, it still shines into the bedroom window, it just isn't mine any more. :)

The beach is nice, but a touch on the cold side with those sea breezes.