Made of Crovie - Growing up on the edge of the ocean

Crovie perches perilously between cliffs and sea, a solitary row of houses huddled gable-end to the waves in an Aberdeenshire bay. Its fishing days long gone, people come and go, but this tiny salt-worn village retains an unparalleled magic. Here, local lad Jamie Ellington recalls growing up on the edge of the ocean.

On a 1980s afternoon, a little Crovie boy rockpools on the narrow pebble beach that separates his village from the ocean. He builds forts, and occasionally pesters the fishermen who are gutting their catch in the stream. When he’s done, he’ll find a spot in the seagrass to read. His cottage is the caramel-coloured fishing cottage, right there, the one with big windows onto the Moray Firth. It’s squeezed into the huddle of stone cottages, piled up like Duplo bricks, where the rounded grass-carpeted cliffs encircling the bay fold into the ocean. The water is calm just now, and the boy won’t have to leapfrog the waves as he walks home along the single path that connects the houses. But his parents are checking the shipping forecast anyway – it’s essential if you live in Crovie, the roadless fishing village between Fraserburgh and Banff. If a storm is drifting inland, everyone will have to race out to put the shutters up or rocks will be hurled through the windows. That’s why most of the cottages cower gable-end to the sea.