City of Aberdeen: The Rise and Fall of the Tramcar

APPENDIX III - THE FOGGIE DIRDER

This was a bus that ran between Huntly (O. S. Ref. NJ5439) and Aberchirder (NJ6353), two small towns about 12 miles apart some 40 miles to the north of Aberdeen. It was known locally as the Foggie Dirder; Aberchirder is also called Foggieloan which means mossy field, and to dird is to bump. Around 1914, the bus was a horse bus, with iron rimmed wooden wheels - hence the bumps. Later it became a motor bus, but the old name stuck. Its primary purpose was to take people to and from the railway station at Huntly, but it also carried bags of mail to and from Aberchirder post office and accepted letters from passengers and no doubt anyone else who stopped it. The Foggie Dirder was a double-decker, though the upper deck was open to the skies and reached by an outside stair.

My informants, the late Miss J D Thomson, Mr P W Scott, and friends, recalled that there was a mail-box attached to the bus beside this stairway. The bus made the return trip three times a day; it was based at Aberchirder and reached Huntly around 8.30am, 2.30pm, & 5pm. Each time it reached Huntly, it called at the station, then went up to the square and waited about an hour. It left the square in Huntly and made its way along Gordon Street, turned down Upperkirkgate and then left when it reached Gladstone Road. Then it went by Gladstone Road and Bogie Street to the station. Here it would stop and await the arrival of the train. Then, having taken aboard any other Foggie bound travellers, it made its way to Aberchirder.

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