An unexpected reminder of the past.

Cathleen and I were staying at the Highland Hotel in Strahtpeffer and on the way up stairs (there were many stairs in what is a beautiful building , opened as the Station Hotel in the first decade of the 20th century  though it has seen better days) I immediately recognised a framed poster on one of the landings,  the full picture of which can be seen in my extra photos today, alongside a view of the village from our room. 

My maternal grandfather was a printer and publisher in Edinburgh , having moved there in the early 1930s to become the Managing Director of Morrison and Gibb at Tanfield , on the site where eventually  Standard Life built its new  HQ.    He had worked his way up on the printing trade in London  before moving to Scotland, though he had no Scottish antecedents (although my grandmother , his wife, did have a Scottish connection as well as an Irish one). 

Morrison & Gibb had grown by acquisition and one of the companies it had taken over was the famous Edinburgh map maker, W & AK Johnston, which had in turn absorb other businesses, including  London based W G Bacon, named after its American founder who had gone bankrupt in the late 19th century. 

This map of the "Clans of the Scottish Highlands" was one of Johnston & Bacon's  signature products and over the years I have seen it in many places.   The company went out of business in the mid 1960s so this copy is more than half a century old. 

W & AK Johnston were based in the famous Edina Works just off London Road, and I remember my Grandfather taking my brother and I there , it must have been in the late 1950s to see maps being made.      I also remember watching Bank of Scotland notes being printed at Tanfield in a security cage, and I have an old pound note with the Morrison & Gibb printers name on it given to me by a collector friend many years ago. 

My grandfather was adept at "fixing" things, and there is a fascinating story about him in the auto  biography of one of the London publishers , in which he was able to save the firm because he could source paper during the war second world war when others couldn't.   That was probably because his brother , Percy, was a paper broker.. 

Anyway, seeing the map brought back all sorts of memories, in an unexpected place.