THE HORN CARVER OF LAWERS
The horn carver of Lawers
Made by a true country man, the buckles and stag horn crooks and pendants whittled by Cameron Thomson are wonderful unique treasures WORDS & IMAGES POLLY PULLAR
I
n these days of disposable plastic tat, when I admit there are times I feel ashamed to be Scottish seeing some of the horrendous
tourist trinkets widely on sale, it is delightful to come across true craftsmanship. I recently had the good fortune to meet the highly skilled and charming Cameron Thomson. I had tried to buy some replacement stag horn
buttons for my son’s kilt jacket, and struggled. Now most off-the-peg jackets come with artifi - cial horn buttons, a tragedy given that every year in spring thousands of pairs of red deer antlers are shed. Few people make use of these lovely natural resources, and instead we may soon lose yet another tradition, and all kilt jacket buttons will be made of soulless plastic. Most antlers come off a beast out on the
open hill. Many are lost altogether and end up in some distant peat bog, others are chewed on and provide a vital calcium boost for a pregnant hind at a time when the winter may have left her at a very low ebb. Stalkers and hill shepherds sometimes collect antlers and can sell them as perks of their jobs. And one man has used them for years, and transformed them into wonderful, unique treasures. Cameron Thomson grew up on a farm near
Huntly in Aberdeenshire. He had two broth- ers and two sisters and shared a box bed with his younger brother Peter, who is still fondly referred to as his ‘little brother’, though he is now 83. From an early age Cameron learnt to work on the land, using the gentle Clydesdales for all farm jobs, ploughing, harrowing, carting and general draft work. Then Cameron learnt to use tractors as more and more farms acquired them, and they gradually ousted the Clydes- dale. He claims, though, that it was far colder
‘We may soon lose yet another tradition, and all kilt jacket buttons will be made of soulless plastic’
Left: The highly skilled and charming Cameron Thomson. Above: Cameron’s shop in its heyday.
sitting on a tractor than walking behind a horse. A true countryman, he learnt much about farm life from his stockman father, and his mother who milked six cows every day. As children they caught rabbits and brought them home, where their mother would quickly turn them into a feast. ‘Mother was a great cook and could make a wonderful meal out of an auld boot. Her food was really delicious and I can still smell it yet,’ he tells me. From an early age, Cameron was ever fi xing
and mending things. His brother Peter used to complain though that it was always Cameron who wielded the hammer, and he, Peter, who ended up with all the bruises. And their mother used to reprimand Cameron for whittling away at sticks from the log basket by the fi re, some- thing he began when very young. Having moved away from Huntly to a remote
part of Perthshire to work as handyman at Kindrogan, he found himself doing much of the gardening there as well. A keeper on the estate showed him how to trap moles, and he has been
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