Portsoy and the Loss of a Craft

In the least-known part of Scotland, the acute-angled bit jutting out north of Aberdeen, is the area called Banffshire. Officially, now, this is all part of Aberdeenshire, but it is still known colloquially as Banffshire, the area surrounding the solid, sturdy little town of Banff. Drive westwards along the main road out of Banff and you will, after a few miles, arrive at Portsoy.

Portsoy is typical of the many fishing villages strung out at regular intervals along the entire Moray and north Aberdeenshire coastline, and is just as typically untouched and unspoiled. It boasts a charming seventeenth century harbour which—outwith the rather more modern boats, and the car tyres providing buffers to prevent boats running into the harbour walls—must have looked almost identical three hundred years ago to how it looks today. Flanking the harbour is a number of buildings of similar age, which would have been used for storage, chandlery, workshops and the like. In one of these can now be found a shop called Portsoy Marble.

One of Portsoy’s chief “claims to fame” is that it is the only place where the stone which is now known as Portsoy marble can be found. Portsoy marble (actually not marble but a form of Serpentine) comes in a range of hues, from turquoise, through sea green/grey, to a deep chocolate brown and oxide red. 

Every piece is different, and the seam itself was long ago exhausted, a good proportion of it having been used in the Palace of Versailles. Today what remains is only those pieces that are found along the beach. In Portsoy Marble, alongside many gems and fossils, one can still buy pieces made from the rare and attractive stone which gives the shop its name…but not for much longer, it seems.

I have been visiting Portsoy for the past five years on my annual pilgrimage to this most beautiful of areas, and on my visit last year heard the sad news that the old gentleman responsible for working the stone into paperweights, eggs, key fobs, “Fyvie balls” and charming little owls, had just died. On this year's visit, the pieces of Portsoy marble available had dwindled to a handful of smooth,  randomly shaped paperweights, a couple of key fobs, and one solitary egg (which I bought). I talked to the owner about the situation and at the present time he isn’t sure whether or not there will be any more pieces once the present ones have gone.

For many years the old gentleman worked in his workshop next to the shop, producing the balls, eggs, owls and other pieces. In that one single man was invested a lifetime of experience and skill, which allowed him to produce such items with great dexterity and sureness of touch. The problem now confronting the owner is twofold: firstly, he has no one to teach him the skills, and secondly he cannot afford the huge commitment of time and effort required to attain them. In these days where everything must be costed and accounted for, it is simply impossible for him to produce saleable pieces without wasting more stone than he uses and without it taking far too long to be worth his while.

And so, it seems, the three or four owls I bought last year, and the egg I managed to obtain this year, may be amongst the last pieces of Portsoy marble sold. Unless the owner has a change of heart, or unless he can find someone who already has stoneworking skills necessary to produce new pieces economically, that will be the case.

There is much to be said for economies of scale, rationalizing of costs, efficiency savings and the rest. There is no doubt that these are the engines of affordability and were it not for our major businesses and corporations continuing to pursue these rainbow-terminating pots of gold, much of the consumer goods we enjoy today would be beyond our budget. But there is something unbearably sad about watching such manual skills passing out of existence, about bearing witness to a craft passing from the present into the past with, apparently, nothing to prevent it happening.

No blame for this attaches to the owner of the shop, of course; he must make a living the same as the rest of us, and if it took him all week to make one little owl, no one could afford to pay for it a price sufficient to cover his costs and give him a reasonable profit for his efforts. But we must guard and cherish such skills as still remain and do more to ensure they continue.

Picking up one of the few pieces of Portsoy marble I am fortunate enough to own, I can feel the way they must have been held in the rough, calloused, skillful fingers of their maker, as he turned them around and around in his hand, working, sanding, smoothing, checking for imperfections with an experienced eye and refined touch until he was satisfied with the piece. I was never lucky enough to meet him, but I imagine him to have given a gruff grunt of approval at each one he finished. These are qualities intangible within the stone; you could cut the stone into smaller and smaller pebbles without finding them, yet they are no less real for it. Embedded within each piece is the time, care and love invested in them by their creator. And something similar can be found in every pot, toy, piece of furniture or jewellery made in a similar way. These are qualities far, far beyond mere pounds and pence.