Glenbuchat Heritage

101 Alex Webster, Gamekeeper, Fiddle Maker Fiddler

Alex Webster Gamekeeper, Fiddler and Fiddle maker Part 1

Click for Alex Webster, Gamekeeper, Fiddler and Fiddle Maker Part 2

The picture of Websters band at Glenbuchat received a reply from Alex Webster’s daughter, Sandra Rettie who has kindly provided more information about her father and his fiddle making.

This page and the next give more details.

The picture above and the following text are taken from an edition of Scotland’s Magazine 1962 ‘Music Maker of Strathdon’, by Douglas Clark, Pictures by Gordon Melrose.

The text states:

“High on the hills of Strathdon, where Deeside and Donside meet, gamekeeper Alex Webster casts an experienced eye on a tree of mountain ash. Carefully he prunes a piece, pockets it, and wends homewards to Glenbuchat Lodge.

This piece of ash, in the hands of Alex Walker, will be carefully trimmed and moulded into the delicate scroll of a violin. For the 49-year-old gamekeeper’s nights are spent fashioning violins.

Fifteen years ago, he decided to make his own violin. He hunted for rich Italian maple; made a template of cardboard; bought chisels and a vice – and started work.

But not for profit. Alex Webster has made 16 violins – and given them all away.
With a typical North East philosophy, he says; “I give them away to anybody who appreciates music.”

Alex Webster is himself a keen fiddler. The melodies of Scott Skinner, whose birthplace Banchory lies further down Deeside, are often heard of an evening , pitching and curving through the twilight.

The maple comes from a friend in Brechin, Angus, and a hut near the lodge is the craftsman’s workshop.

There, the smell of resin mingles with the varnish: fine strings hang from a hook, and scattered on a worn bench lie the instruments which fashion the violins – ordinary chisels and knives.

But in the hands of Alex Webster, they shape the finest of all musical instruments.

His job is not to be envied; rain, sun or snow sees him on the hills every day. He is close to nature and its beauties, and from nature itself he brings forth beauty. That to him is reward in itself – as well as providing pleasure to those who seek it through music.

Anyone who has an Alex Webster violin – although it is not a Stradivarius or a Cremona - has a unique possession, for hid products are the result of seeking happiness and pleasure."