Diary of a Shopkeeper, 28th May

One of the best things about running a shop is seeing staff develop and advance as they learn new skills and gain confidence. This is especially rewarding when the staff are secondary-school age, taking their first steps down the path of a working life. When I was fourteen, I got a job as orra loon in the butcher’s shop in our village in Aberdeenshire. It was an education – in an entirely good way.

I learned the basic skills of food processing: making mince, sausages and haggis. I was taught how to minimise waste by picking and scraping every scrap of meat off the bones. (Was the bone completely white? No? Then I hadn’t done my job properly.) I pickled tongues, boiled hams and cooked steak in gravy which I poured into pie tins. Then I carried the tray to the baker’s to be covered with pastry and baked. At Christmas there were a hundred turkeys to be plucked, singed and stuffed.

All these skills were challenging to acquire, but created in me an enthusiasm for good ingredients, and a respectful attitude that minimised food waste and maximised the use of every part of the carcase. Certain kinds of fat, for instance – suet around the kidneys was best – were carefully cut off and saved, to be boiled and strained later to make dripping.

More importantly, I learned the skills of working. Turning up on time. Keeping the workspace tidy and clean. Not getting in the way. Cleaning some more. Never standing idle: there’s always something that needs done. Like another clean. A particularly important skill was listening to my boss telling me the best way to do something. Then listening to my boss when he reminded me the best way to do that thing. Finally understanding that the boss’s way – acquired after years of trial and error – really was the best way. After that he didn’t need to tell me anymore, because I was already doing it.

The final challenge was to combine all of the above with serving in the shop. Months of learning the basics skills of butchery, and how to get on with the other staff – aware of my place at the bottom of the pecking order but expected nonetheless to participate and speak up for myself – were now to have a massive wildcard introduced: the customer. After many years of shopwork it’s second nature. But for a young person it’s a tremendous hurdle to have to deal with dozens of individuals all day, each wanting something different, each having their own preferences. Some customers were friendly, some gruff, some demanding, some dithery.  

All of them assumed you knew what you were doing. ‘Fake it till you make it’ is not a bad slogan. But in a butcher’s shop you don’t want to be faking for very long: not with all those sharp knives, cleavers and mincers about.

In the early days, my least favourite customer request was for bacon. Some wanted it sliced thickly, some thinly. Some wanted a pound, others just two pristine slices. It all had to be done on the bacon slicer, a fiendish machine behind the counter that required the right hand to whirl the circular blade at just the right speed while the left hand held a piece of waxed paper to catch the slices as they fell– the customer expected – in perfectly neat rows. Very little in my working life has been as challenging as cutting a dozen slices of very thin streaky for Mrs Grassick of Corquhittachie.

Sometimes you hear middle-aged folk saying, ‘Youngster these days just don’t know how to work.’ That’s not my experience. Without exception the teenagers who come to work in our shop are keen to learn, to be part of the team, and to do their best. When they start, most don’t have workplace skills or much confidence. It’s up to us old hands to support and encourage them while they learn. And when they do, it’s a joy to see: these kids are our future. Ah yes, I was the future once!

The graphic at the top is the cover of a 1946 book of poems by John C Milne. Born near Fraserburgh in 1897, he was one of the great Aberdeenshire Scots poets of the 20th century. Relatively little read now, his work awaits the kind of rediscovery recently accorded that of his friend and editor Nan Shepherd.

The fairmer winna ken but what I’m a glakit loon
That disna ken a doit aboot a muckle ferm toon,
But fegs! He’ll gie his lugs a shak and glower in ilka ee
Fin I am aince the orra loon at Mains o’ Pittendree.

This diary appeared in The Orcadian on 31st May 2023. A new one appears weekly. I post them in this blog a few days after each newspaper appearance, with added illustrations., and occasional small corrections or additions