Obituary: William Gordon, Bettyhill
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William Gordon, better known as Billy, was born at 22 Aird on May 4, 1929, and passed away at the Innis Mhor Care Home, Tain, on August 2, 2022.
Billy led a varied and interesting life, largely in the village of Bettyhill but also with interludes which took him to the other side of the world.
The only child of Angus Gordon and his wife Ann, nee Morrison, he enjoyed a very happy childhood in their Gaelic speaking household.
His father, in addition to crofting, made his living delivering coal which arrived by steam puffer at Bettyhill pier and which he conveyed to all and sundry with his horse and cart.
Billy attended the primary section of Farr Public School in what is now the Wylie Fenton Field Centre, before passing the infamous ‘Quali’, predecessor of the equally unpopular 11+, on his second attempt and heading off for Helmsdale High School to begin his secondary education.
Leaving Helmsdale, aged 15, he returned to Bettyhill where, as well as a brief stint as gravedigger at Clachan Cemetery, a dead end job as he called it, he helped his dad with the coal business, first with their horses and cart and later, when he learned to drive, on a small Austin truck.
The coal was initially stored in a substantial hut beside the pier, which had originally been constructed by the local gentry as storage for their supplies and a garage for their cars, which, like the coal, were delivered by sea to await the owners’ arrival for the shooting and fishing season.
Billy did not entirely agree that shooting and fishing pursuits should be the exclusive preserve of the aristocracy. He enjoyed plenty of shooting practice in the Army Cadet Force organised by the Home Guard at both Helmsdale and Bettyhill, a skill which came in handy in later life when the occasional deer strayed into his sights.
In the 50s he gave up the coal business and became part of the post-war construction boom - initially with Wimpey on the stretch across Apigill from Strathnaver road end to Borgie Bridge – and later with Whatlings, the Glasgow based company engaged in the huge nuclear project at Dounreay. There he was lucky to escape injury when scaffolding collapsed during the construction of the ‘Doureay Ball’.
As work at the atomic site began to dry up, he signed on with local contractors J and GB Mackay, based originally in Swordly but later with a yard in Inverness, and spent several years on a wide variety of jobs all over the north and as far afield as Benbecula.
Perhaps crossing the water sparked his wanderlust because he then joined the Merchant Navy, initially on vessels that traded along the coast in the UK and over into the Baltic, but later as an AB with the New Zealand Shipping Company which, as its name suggests, took him to the farthest Antipodes and also on to voyages around the Pacific which could last up to two years.
His adventures abroad were to change his life forever as, while docked in London, he met Flora Mitchell of Saltcoats at a dance and fell for her hook, line and sinker.
After a whirlwind romance, they married in London on September 23, 1966, whereupon Billy, enslaved to the terms of his contract with NZSC, embarked on his final voyage as a merchant seaman.
Back on dry land six months later, he brought Flora home to Aird and was fortunate to secure a steady job with Sutherland County Council together with his friend Sandy (Crow) Mackay.
Both had plenty of stories to tell and there was never a dull moment on the ‘scaffie’ cart. As a sideline he went into partnership with another old pal, Bert Munro, and together they acquired a small boat which they used in pursuit of lobsters and crabs.
Rumour has it that they also had a go at drift netting for salmon and that, during a spell of thick haar, they attempted to net the river mouth in broad daylight.
Unfortunately, the mist chose to evaporate just after they shot the net, leaving them very dangerously exposed. They beat as hasty a retreat as is possible with an old boat and a small outboard motor!
After a few years on the scaffie cart Billy changed direction again, returning to the Wimpey quarry on the Borgie side of Apigill as tar plant and crusher operator before, in 1976, securing a processor’s job in the chemical team at Dounreay.
This task involved the decontamination of radioactive materials so he must have kept safety firmly in mind given his longevity thereafter!
On retiral from Dounreay aged 60, he obtained a seasonal job with Simon Paterson at the bag-net fishery in Strathy with no need to worry about how thick the mist was as this time it was fully legal.
In the 1990s he drove the local ambulance during which time his main claim to fame was having a baby girl from Melness named after him.
But, unlike the salmon fishing, the rules began to catch up with him and, much to his annoyance, he was forced to retire when he reached the age of 70.
That did not stop him driving on his own behalf of course and he hung on to his car keys to the ripe old age of 92 when he surrendered them pretty unwillingly.
After all this activity over such a long period you might think that a rest would be in order but not so. He continued with life on the croft in cahoots with his neighbour William Sutherland and went on tending his flock until he was well into his eighties.
While all this might seem to portray a person who lived for work, that would be an entirely unjust portrait of Billy.
His marriage with Flora was a lifetime union with more than 50 happy years shared together before she passed away from Alzheimer’s disease in 2017.
In the closing years of Flora’s life he did his absolute best to look after her at home.
He was very proud of their three children, Angus, Fiona and Murdo, born in 1967, 1969 and 1970 respectively and did his best to encourage them in all their endeavours.
The arrival of grandchildren, seven altogether, was a great source of pleasure to him in recent years and, whenever the opportunity arose, he was ready with a story or anecdote to raise their spirits or inform them of their heritage.
And he had time for religion too as a regular attender at the Free Church and at the Church of Scotland after Free Church services in Bettyhill ceased a few years ago.
As mentioned at the start, he was born into a Gaelic speaking household and consequently became one of a tiny and rapidly diminishing number of people across the entire North Coast who were fluent speakers of the local variant of Scotland’s ancient language.
As a result he was in great demand from the Gaelic media when something of interest occurred in the area and once even made a live broadcast by telephone from Borgie forest in the midst of a fire.
Students of linguistics interviewed him on matters of local Gaelic pronunciation and when some of his grandchildren took up study of the tongue, he was able to keep them on track to the authentic Mackay Country slant.
He remained interested in the Mod, especially when the Caithness and Sutherland Provincial Mod was conducted in Bettyhill, and in the activities of Feis Air an Oir.
The most remarkable thing about him, almost to the very end, was his excellent memory and ability to vividly recall, and place in a timeline, the countless events of his long lifetime and the lifetimes of his immediate ancestors.
If you wanted to know anything about Bettyhill in the 20th century, and some things about decades or even centuries before that, you had only to ask Billy Gordon – the greatest of raconteurs.
To finish – the Bettyhill Gala used to run a sheep race which took place on the Achneiskich loop road - an ideal location as it was fenced more or less all the way round and there was a good space for spectators at the finish line.
Now, few sheep really grasp the concept of racing and, unlike horses, require to be chased round the course.
The chaser on more than one occasion was 75+ year-old Billy Gordon who pursued the reluctant racers with extraordinary vigour assisted somewhat by his good dog Tim, though the dog did rather less running than his master did.
And that was Billy – always full of energy and ready to be of service. He may have lived till he was 93 but in his heart he was more like 21!
He was laid to rest, beside his beloved Flora, in Clachan Cemetery on Wednesday, August 17, where the service was conducted by the Reverend Howard Stone.
Pall bearers were: Angus Gordon, son, Fiona Macleod, daughter, Murdo Gordon, son, Alan Gordon, Kirsty, Duncan and Rona Macleod, Sean and Lee Gordon, all grandchildren, and nephew, Jim Richmond.
