Blowing in the Wind
“I was on a Highland golf tour with my buddy Roberto. He told me to call a number in Grantown-on-Spey to arrange a visit to Bob Dylan’s house. ”
Through the years, I’ve learned to suspend any sense of disbelief with Roberto and go with the flow. Later that day, we were sitting enjoying coffee & cakes with the Zimmermans.
Aultmore Estate lies just outside the village of Nethy Bridge, the 2nd hole of Abernethy Golf Club playing across the access road, one of the more unusual par 3s in Scotland. Another 300 yards on stands a most impressive mansion in the middle of thick woods with a wide open prospect of the magnificent Cairngorm Mountains.
We pulled up the drive, and sure enough, there was David Zimmerman standing at the door waiting to greet us. After meeting the family and enjoying coffee and cake with them, David & Gayle strolled around the gardens, David and I discussing the music business which was still his main gig.
‘They built the house for that view,” David was telling me. I was bemused 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, 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
FRENCH CHATEAU
To be honest, in my youth I was never that much of a Bob Dylan fan. Like the famous folkie, I grew up in the Midwest and being a bit younger was more inclined towards Hendrix, Zepplin, Cream and CCR.
“What do you think about this place for golfers?” David was asking 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 being bought by 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, the school was owned and run by 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.
