These notes were supposed to explain why SD came to write Welcome to Oakhaven, the story how Elaine Jackson settled into the village. Well, we've got as far on the Dalton's travels and settling in to when we left for South Africa. Everyone thinks - Oh you go to South Africa as if it was going to Edinburgh or Cambridge or somewhere. It's not like that, the mines are dotted all over the place. The gold mines are fairly central around Johannesburg but even the diamond mines are out in the sticks at Kimberley. Kimberley would make a decent sized market town when we were there and the nearest thing north is Johannesburg more than four hours drive away. There's nothing west. There nothing south or east until you get to the coast and that takes at least eight hours. We finished up in the semi- desert three hours on dirt roads south west of Kimberley worrying about how our furniture and the cats would get there in one piece.

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Deep Freeze in Glasgow

After three enjoyable years in Aberdeen's suburbs the work SD had been contracted to do came to and end and we were once more on the move. This time back to Glasgow where I opened a deep freeze shop and SD tried to sell insurance. A more unlikely job, selling insurance against a rainy day, for someone who had grown up in the mining industry where they took risks every day was never likely to be a success. While the deep freeze shop did well and I gave talks to several groups about how to save money with a freezer, SD mooned around, writing magazine articles which, in some casses, would only be paid for in eighteen months. While we had made good friends, I began to realise he needed to get back to the rough and tumble of mining and talked him into looking around. With both mothers alive, Australia was too far, SD said the Canadian mines were too remote and he looked at Africa again. This time I was determined to take my bits and pieces with me, including those cats.

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More Murder at the seaside

Carrying on from Lorna being worried about being called as a witness i the Aberdeen murder case - Lorna and her husband had invited another couple for dinner. During the meal, Linda's husband George mentioned they had been invited to a party at a farm if they wanted to go. Since only Linda and George knew the way to the farm, and, in those days the men drove the ladies, they split up with Linda and her male guest in one car, George driving his lady guest in the other. Lorna got there first and was ushered into the house by the farmer. 'Can I take your things,' the farmer asked. Linda said no not yet, she was still a bit cold and followed into the big farm lounge. As she looked round, she realised everyone was naked. This may have been the swinging sixties for a few but most of  us still remembered our mother's warnings about free sex and unwanted pregnancies and those dreadful diseases and Lorna found herself talking twenty to the dozen and trying not to look at the drooping busts, stretch marks and sagging tummies on display. When George arrived, she pushed him out of the door and into the car. What worried her when she heard about the farmer being  murdered and the trial was that she might be called as a witness of some kind and it would all come out about her being at the nude party. They didn't need her but she lost a few pounds worrying about it.  I'm telling this to show how SD and I met interesting people and led to Welcome to Oakhaven being written.

 www.sullatoberdalton.com/books/welcome-oakhaven

Murder at the Seaside

I'm going to start this from the beginning. SD had started sailing in Zambia and when we got to Aberdeen made straight for the yacht club at Stonehaven. I'd met a friend I'd known from youth club and tennis days and we used to make sandwiches and boiled eggs and go down to the harbour until our husbands came from work to join us. We noticed a small aeroplane dodging back and forward and thought it was odd but that was all. Then one day Linda came to our house all of a tizz asking oif I'd heard about the murder. It turned out the plane had been a farmer spying on his wife having an affair and the lovers had murdered the farmer. They put his body through the machine they used for chopping up turnips for the pigs - so the story went. What was worrying Linda was that she had been to a party at the farmers and might be called as some kind of character witness. It's too long a story for this blog but I'll tell you why next time.

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Aberdeen granite

I'd been told the Aberdeen people were like the granite - a bit hard to chip but we moved into a reanted house while we looked round for somewhere to buy, we had lovely neighbours and we settled in quickly. We found a lovely house in a suburb called Cults and the children started at the school up the hill. I said to SD, short for Sullatober Dalton as Sullatober was shortened to Sulla and he hated that. In Cults the houses were quite large and separated by walls so I didn't get to know any of the neighbours quickly and I said to SD that I would just talk to the girls picking up the children at the school. I was a little nervous of just forcing myself in but one of the girls, called Linda, came and asked if I was new and that was that. Linda introduced me to the others and I soon had a circle of friends. They did a stall at the church fete and I made door stops and draught stoppers in the shape of Dougal from the Magic Roundabout and that sort of thing. I must tell you about Linda and the murder next time.

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I started this to show how we had moved about but Welcome to Oakhaven is really about Elaine Jackson and I want to tell our story in Elice's words, so here goes - We came back from Zambia and, of course, SD had no job and started to panic a bit, not like him but this was his first taste of being unemployed. We were going to Canada, British Columbia, not that awful place in Ontario where the smelter fumes killed all the vegetation, and he thought of teaching until we'd sorted things out. He'd been earning £212 a month in Zambia but they only offered £600 a year to teach. Isn't it pathetic what they pay teachers and nurses when they are so important to our families! Then, just as I'd had enough of staying like a lodger with one or other of our mothers, he was offered a job in Aberdeen and we were off again,

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