Baxters reunion for lifelong friends
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
Dave Geddes (left) and Gordon Baxter reminisce on old times.
FOCHABERS ex-pat Dave Geddes has been a lifelong friend of Gordon Baxter, but he revealed his time with the famous family firm lasted less than two weeks after a strange request from Gordon’s father, William.
"I left school at 14 and worked for a while at Baxters factory. One day, William asked me to clean out the dog houses and I told him I was not sure about that and I quit," he said.
That was one of the memories of life in Fochabers recalled by Mr Geddes (81), who has lived in Canada for 60 years, during a special reunion at Baxters last week.
Mr Geddes was born and brought up in a cottage near the factory which was owned by the Baxter family and went to school at Milne’s Institution.
After his brief time with Baxters, which employed ten people in those days and now employs 1,300 worldwide, Mr Geddes began work as a telegram delivery boy with the Post Office in Fochabers.
That saw him jump on his bike and deliver telegrams across the rural patch, a job he enjoyed immensely.
"I remember one cold, rainy morning delivering a telegram to a cottage near Ordiquish. As I got closer there were two people at the top of the hill and as I got closer the woman came down. I gave her the envelope and she started crying and rushed back up to her husband.
"This was a message from her son who was coming home after five years as a prisoner of war.
"Another day some time later I had another telegram to go to the same house and it was from the second son, who was also coming home after being a prisoner of war," said Mr Geddes.
From there, he took a job on the railway in Dumbarton as a fireman.
In 1951, he got a job as a clerk with the Hudson Bay Company in Canada. A few years later he worked for an American company transporting materials to Alaska for the building of radar stations, at a time when the Cold War was in full flow.
At the age of 26, Mr Geddes decided to "go back to school" and went on to study education at university.
He went on to become a teacher at the Paul Kane High School at St Albert, a suburb of Edmonton, where he taught local government, English literature, languages and drama over a 30 year career.
Since retiring, Mr Geddes has gone on to publish a number of books charting his early years in Fochabers.
He has always been keen on local history and for many years wrote a column for his local newspaper in Canada.
He was joined by his brother, Charlie, who lives in Edinburgh, and sister-in-law Maureen, who lives in Portknockie, and other contemporaries from the Fochabers community for a reunion lunch in The Great Hall at Baxters.
Mr Baxter (93), who was instrumental in creating the Baxters presence around the world, was delighted to host the event.
"It is great to welcome this son of Fochabers back to his home village, particularly for me as the Geddes family were born and brought up next door to the factory," he said.
"We phone each other and also send Christmas cards. In my life I have been able to establish friendships and I communicate regularly with about 250 old friends.
"Dave is one of them and when I heard he was coming back home I had to arrange something, as we are all getting older and there might not be too many more opportunities to do this," he added.
