A classic Scots farmhouse, it was built in the mid-19th century and had not been touched since. It was owned by a big estate, and a tenant farmer had lived there until a few months before. Robbie Farquhar and his disabled brother, Joseph, were famous in the area for how well they kept their farm. Their garden was immaculate, too, with vegetable patches, flowers and topiary. When Robbie retired, they had to move out to a wooden cottage in Fordyce.
One day, Miriam — who buys houses like they’re sweeties — said: “Little Cultain’s for sale: we have to buy it!” Because the house had no services — no water, drainage or power — it was unfit for human habitation and, theoretically, had a demolition order on it. At that time, there were tax breaks in forestry, and the estate wanted to flatten the house to plant forest. Legally, though, they had to advertise it for sale. It was £5,000.
I was renting a flat above the Phoenix Theatre in Charing Cross Road. My neighbours were Derek Jarman and Jack Tinker, the drama critic. I wasn’t interested in property, but I liked the idea of saving this wonderful house, so I bought it with Miriam.
It was a risk. We weren’t allowed to live there unless we had services, but we didn’t know if we would be able to get an adequate water supply to the house until we bought it. We spent £1,000 drilling a well and, luckily, the water quality was good enough to pipe to the house. We had to have drainage, so we built a septic tank.
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Mains electricity was unaffordable then — it would have cost £50,000 — so we had a generator. When you flicked a switch in the house, the generator was supposed to kick in and the lights would come on. An awful lot of times they didn’t, and I’d go out on a freezing night to start this “gennie”, only to realise we’d run out of diesel. Later, the EU came up with a scheme — designed, I think, for French farmers — and we got a grant to put in electricity.
The cottage had two attic bedrooms that the brothers never used. They slept downstairs and lived in the kitchen. They cooked on a range and had a cold room instead of a fridge. They never used the parlour, except for funerals. There was an outside toilet.
The parlour was dressed by the BBC with jazzy 1920s wall- paper, which we kept. My furniture, from the 1930s, happened to fit in, and we put a rug over the wooden floor. We abandoned the back kitchen, turning the boys’ downstairs bedroom into our kitchen. We kept the stone floor and put in pine cupboards and a wood-burning stove. Upstairs, we built a bathroom.
I fell in love with Little Cultain, and for five years lived between there and Charing Cross Road. I met my wife Hildegard at that time, and she loved the house, too. When I was making The Killing Fields and Comfort and Joy I didn’t get to Banff for ages, but then I’d spend four weeks there. Miriam only made the odd visit because she also had a house in Italy, but she kindly signed cheques when needed. We spent about £15,000 on the place.
After our son Jack came along, Hildegard and I only visited a couple of times. With a kid you don’t move so easily. In 1985, we discovered an organisation sponsored by the Scottish Arts Council that provided work space for artists and writers. Through it, we gave the house to a couple of sculptors. In the late 1980s they said they wanted to buy it and offered £30,000, which we accepted.
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Last year I worked with the actor James Fleet, who has family in Banff. I asked him to visit Little Cultain. He said a retired couple live there now, and that forest has been planted right round the property, so it looks like the cottage in Hansel and Gretel. Robbie’s cornfields are long gone, but at least his house was saved.
Interview by Rosanna Greenstreet