Bob’s House
“I was never that much of a Bob Dylan fan. My Scottish pals were! I don’t know what they thought when I was invited to his Highland home for cakes & coffee!”
Aultmore Estate is just outside the village of Nethy Bridge. The 2nd hole of Abernethy Golf Club plays across the access road, one of the more unusual par 3s in Scotland. A most impressive house stands in the middle of thick woods with an open prospect of the magnificent Cairngorm Mountains.
‘They built the house to take advantage of that view,” David was telling me. I was amused to be strolling around the boxed garden with Bob Dylan’s younger brother and his wife Gayle, both smoking profusely and tossing their butts wherever they pleased. They employed two full-time gardeners to look after their butts.
Bob & David Zimmerman bought Aultmore back in 2007, the singer smitten with Scotland and the Highlands in particular. His song, "Highlands" released on his 30th studio album ‘Time Out of Mind’ is his second-longest studio recording at sixteen minutes and thirty-one seconds.
HIGHLAND TOUR
I was on a golf tour with my New York pal, Roberto Borgatti. In typical Roberto fashion, he told me to call a number in Grantown-on-Spey to arrange a visit to Bob Dylan’s house.
Roberto’s one of my dearest friends and through the years, I’ve learned to set aside my sense of disbelief and go with the flow. I made the call!
The voice on the other end was a certain Dawn Hargreaves. “Oh yes! We’ve been waiting for you. Why don’t you pick me up? We’ve been invited for coffee & cakes.” We collected Dawn from her cosy little cottage overlooking Grantown-on-Spey Golf Club and drove another half dozen miles to the neighbouring village of Nethy Bridge.
FRENCH CHATEAU
Aultmore is a bit like a French chateau and as we pulled up the drive, sure enough, there was David Zimmerman standing at the door waiting to greet us. After meeting the family and enjoying the coffee and cakes, we strolled around the gardens, David and I discussing the music business which was still his main gig. Not a word was mentioned about his famous brother.
“What do you think about this place for golfers?” David asked me pointing back at the house. “How many bedrooms does it have?” I asked. “There are 18 upstairs and another floor above that,” he replied.
GIRLS SCHOOL
Before the Zimmermans, Aultmore House was a finishing school for very, very well-healed young ladies. We’re talking Saudi Princesses and the like! For 17 years it run was Dawn Hargreaves and her husband Charles.
That evening, we arranged to meet Dawn and her friends for dinner at La Taverna, an Italian restaurant in the nearby ski centre of Aviemore.
Dawn was in her early 80s and just by the twinkle in her eye and her sparkling conversation, I could tell she’d lived a full and fascinating life. Her friends were quite upper-crust and there was mention of ‘Harry’ coming up next week. I presumed they were talking ‘Prince’. What was more interesting was Dawn’s own story which, over a few glasses of wine, all came out.
COMMANDO POST
Long before they were married and at the outset of WWII, Dawn’s husband had been involved in the establishment of the Commando Training Post in nearby Spean Bridge.
Achnacarry Castle was regarded as the finest of all the WWII Allied special training centres and soldiers from across Britain, the USA, France, Holland, Belgium, Poland and Norway came to train under the shadow of Ben Nevis, Britain’s highest mountain.
After rigorous training, Hargreaves was parachuted into Yugoslavia to work with the Serbian nationalist guerrilla force, the ‘Chetniks’. His orders were to "make himself useful", which he proceeded to do with ambush operations against the Germans.
Later, he fell into the hands of the enemy still wearing his Chetnik badge and the Germans, assuming he was a terrorist, sent him to the Gestapo prison in Belgrade where he underwent brutal interrogation before being sentenced to death.
Hargreaves protested that he was a British officer and was finally granted the benefit of the doubt, transferred to a concentration camp at Buchenwald and then, due to declining health to Colditz Castle. There he teamed up with fellow New Zealander and friend, Captain Charles Upham, the double VC winner. Upham was the last man to be awarded the Victoria Cross twice. He is only one of three to have achieved that feat and the only one of to have actually been a combat soldier.
There they remained until liberated in 1945!
HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE
“Hargreave’s peacetime activities were no less derring-do! ”
Hargreave’s peacetime activities were no less derring-do! More than a bit of a James Bond character, Hargreaves travelled the world under the guise of a ‘Queen's Messenger’, delivering classified material and carrying out ‘matters’ on behalf of MI5, the British Intelligence agency.
In 1964, he met Dawn Mackay, the young headmistress of Heathfield School. They married and moved to Hatchlands near Guildford to run a finishing school for girls. Later they moved to Aultmore and operated the school there for a further 17 years before selling the mansion to the Zimmermans.
At the age of 75, Charles Hargreaves was invited to New Zealand where his achievements were celebrated in a ‘This is Your Life’ programme when he was reunited with his friend Charles Upham. He died in Grantown-on-Spey on the 4th of February 2005. Dawn died in her 90th year in Grantown. I was very glad to have met her acquaintance.
