For over forty years, Dufton Scott was known throughout Scotland and beyond for his series of humorous stories and sketches in the north east dialect. These were performed without make up or props. He simply used his voice to gain the effect which he sought.
Born at Forgue in Aberdeenshire in 1880 he started his working life as an ironmonger in nearby Huntly. His interest in the entertainment business led him to join George Walker's touring party, performing his own monolgues in a broad mid-Aberdeenshire accent. In these tours he often performed on the same bill as the fiddlers James Scott Skinner and Mackenzie Murdoch.
By the time of the outbreak of the First World War, Dufton's popularity was widespread in his native Scotland, and he was encouraged to publish a collection of his monologues, “Humorous Scots Stories and Sketches” which he did from his bookshop business in Inverurie where he had settled on his marriage in 1911. Subsequent editions were issued having been updated with new material (In the 1934 edition there are twelve stories, and by the 1953 edition it had risen to twenty stories) and, such were their popularity, continued to be reprinted well into the 1950s.
With the arrival of radio in the 1920s, Dufton Scott quickly became a favourite. His style was well-suited to broadcasting and via this medium, reached an ever widening audience. He hosted such programmes as ''An Evenin' in the Grieve's Hoose", where his "Braid Scots Stories" would be interspersed with music and song from singers such as John Strachan and Scott’s great friend, Tom Morrison, the manager of the local Commercial Bank and fellow-member of the local concert party. With Tom Morrison, he collaborated on many musical and dramatic productions on stage, record and radio.
Alongside the support he gave to Doric playwrights as publisher and agent, he kept alive the tradition of the short comic sketch.
Dufton Scott died in 1944.
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