From Issue Eight of Hidden Scotland Magazine

Auld and New

Banjo Beale on old things, and the stories they carry.

Words by Banjo Beale · Photographs by Alexander Baxter

Printed in Issue Eight of Hidden Scotland Magazine, Spring and Summer 2024.

I love collecting old things. Old people too. When you inherit pieces that have lived a life, sometimes more than one, they come with a story and patina that you simply can’t get new. The wisdom and wonder that comes with age does not compare. In fact, did you know the collective noun for old folk is called ‘a wisdom of grandparents’ and for grannies, ‘a tapestry’?

Auld and New, photograph by Alexander Baxter

My best pal Chris is an 80-year-old granny who has woven a remarkable little world at Isle of Mull Cheese, the last remaining cheese farm in the Hebrides. In 2015 our life changed when we wandered into her patch of paradise on the west coast of Scotland. My partner Ro and I quit our jobs in Australia and bought a one way ticket to Sri Lanka with no plan and no idea where we’d end up. We had a hunch there might be more out there for us. Less as well; less stress, less competition and less consumption.

I was an Ideas Director working in advertising in Australia. A fabulous job title that does what it says on the tin. It was a dream role that suited a perpetual dreamer. Every day I’d come up with creative ideas on how to get people to spend money, mostly on things they don’t need.

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