The son of a former Buckie master baker says the Moray town has changed dramatically in the past six decades.
Murray Wallace, 72, the son of Buckie master baker Harry Wallace, has spoken to the Press and Journal after his family’s old bakery sign was uncovered earlier this month.
A green pitch pine sign that reads “Harry Wallace” was found last week during the refurbishment of the new tanning shop on East Church Street.
Following the discovery, The P&J reached out to Mr Wallace, who shared the extraordinary story of his family.
Born in 1952 as the only son of Harry and Elisabeth Wallace’s five children, he started working at his dad’s bakery at the age of 16.
He remembers Buckie as a “very lively town” during his childhood and teenage years, saying life in the Moray burgh was “very different” from what it is today.
Master baker Harry Wallace built three bakeries ‘out of nothing’
Mr Wallace remembers his dad Harry as “a very clever and self-made man.”
“He had nothing and ended up having three bakeries, one in Buckie, one in Alford and one in Oldmeldrum,” he said.
Harry Wallace, from Alloa, was the youngest of 13 siblings, including 11 brothers and one sister.
Born as Henry Wallace, he changed his name to Harry because he hated his original one.
A bright student, he got the Dux Award at Alloa School, however, he had to leave his studies because his family needed the money.
He was a war prisoner in Germany for five years, which meant he only saw his daughter Jennifer for the first time when she was four.
The Wallace family arrived in Buckie in 1952, months after Murray was born, with Harry opening his first bakery on Low Street.
The bakery soon became very popular among Buckie residents, which led to the opening of a second shop on East Church Street.
Early days in the Buckie bakery
Mr Wallace remembers he started helping out his father at the age of 12, carrying 140-pound flour sacks.
He started working full-time at the bakery after he left school at 16.
“My father told me I would start working at 3am, and I replied: ‘that’s illegal’, as children were only supposed to work from 6am,” he remembers with a smile.
When asked what his dad answered to that, he said: “He just laughed. It was just the way it was.”
In 1971, Harry Wallace closed all his bakeries after having a heart attack.
Mr Wallace explained: “His idea was to reopen the Buckie bakeries with me running them under his supervision.
“However, he died a year later, aged 52, and I was only 19, so I was too young to be in charge of the family business.”
Mr Wallace studied Bakery Management at Aberdeen Technical College and worked for 36 years as a baker on oil rigs until he retired.
Remembering his father, he said: “He was a very clever man. He was very old school, fair but very strict.
“He was a good man, I missed him terribly when he died.”
Buckie was a ‘very lively town’
Speaking about Buckie’s past, Mr Wallace remembers the town was a “really busy place” back then.
He explained: “It was a very lively fishing town and was very busy, with a variety of things to do; it was completely different and much better.
“I used to do deliveries when I was 17 and there were so many businesses: butchers, fishmongers, a furniture shop, a hardware shop, grocery shops; it was a really busy place.”
However, he said everything changed with the arrival of supermarkets.
“These were the days before the supermarkets took over, as once they did, we could not compete with them,” he explained.
When asked if he misses the old times, he said: “Yes and no, life is just different nowadays some people would call it progress, others would call it regress.
“It’s hard to tell, it’s a really different way of life compared to what it was.”
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