40th ANNIVERSARY RUN

 

To celebrate, it was decided to transport a Stag mascot, SOCrates, around the UK,

taking photos of the stages.

Unfortunately there are few Stag Owners Club members in the far North of Scotland

so the farthest North it came was to the Grampian area.

Malcolm collected SOCrates from Perth and took it to Aberdeen.

Four of us, Danny, Jim , Malcolm & myself met at the Torry Battery overlooking

Aberdeen Harbour entrance to take some photos, some of which appeared in

the SOC Magazine & Website.

The following evening Malcolm and myself took the pack to the

Baxter's of Speyside Visitor's Centre at Mosstodloch near Fochabers to photograph

SOCrates with the centre's magnificent bronze Stag statue.

The distance was about 52 miles for myself & another 10 for Malcolm.

We set off in pleasant evening sunshine and as usual my hood was stowed where it

should be, in it's well.

Everything was fine until we turned off at Huntly onto the Dufftown road.

As we climbed to the highest point of the road (about 400m) the sky became ominously dark.

I pulled over and put the hood up just as a heavy hailstone storm hit us.

Visibility was very poor so we waited until the storm passed.

We continued on through Dufftown and Craigellachie, turning off at Rothes for Fochabers.

When we arrived we met Mike Taylor who lives locally and took the photos in the evening

sunshine. After the photo shoot we chatted to some visitors who were interested in the cars,

the hood came down again, and we made our way home down the A96 with the

modern traffic holding us up.

Next day Malcolm the took SOCrates back to Dundee to begin the homeward journey.