ART OF Reflections
Gregg Boyd. Scotland.
A home away from home. It’s no small journey from the Lochs to London.
For Gregg Boyd, his shoap and business, Auld Hag, is a labour of love intent on bringing the finest produce from north of the border to homesick Scots all across London. A pride in the land he was born that’s shaped his identity and spawned a life celebrating anything and everything Scottish, and bringing a piece of home to people in the shape of a home cooked morning roll.
“It’s good for me to see people who are 18 or 80, both excited for different reasons. The 18 year olds happy cause they’ve only just left home but they’ve got somewhere to come and get a taste of home. The 80 year olds that come in and say they’ve not had a Scottish breakfast for 40 years for whatever reason. They get something that makes them happy and that they miss, and for me that’s special.”
And with the World Cup on the horizon, Gregg’s community building over the last 5 years is culminating in the ‘No Scotland, no party’ to end all ‘No Scotland, no parties’. London’s only Scotland fan zone. 1500 fans taking over the capital with the finest brews and scran aplenty.
Nae thing like community, ay.
It can be a strange one to ponder the circumstances and experiences that led you to where you are today. For Gregg Boyd, Auld Hag has been the culmination of an identity shaped and formed by the roads that he's travelled since leaving home.
‘I carried this pride with me the further I went from Scotland, and it’s shaped my whole life now.”
What started out as a lockdown project, reconnecting and spreading Scottish scran to anyone and everyone who wanted it. Free of charge too we might add. 5 years on now finds itself as the roof over the head for Scots here in the capital, a space to hear your own accent and share in those nuances that can only come from a heritage lived. London can be a scary place, we all know it. Home comforts are invaluable when set against a city that houses a bigger population than your own country does.
This summer that pride may reach heights he never knew it could. The script on Scotland has been completely flipped, as Gregg said to us, those cold nights at Hampden Park 15 years ago would have seen a half full stadium, the constant near misses becoming too much to bare for many. But now ‘Scotland’ and ‘major tournament’ are words becoming familiar to each other once again. A country primed to make the most of a World Cup generations in the making. And for Scots in London at least, at the centre of it is someone who’s doing everything to represent his homeland good and proper.
It’s no small task to wrangle 1500 football fans of any denomination into one place, but the values that Gregg has built Auld Hag around are a siren call to anyone with tartan blood. For those three group games, and oh how we do hope there's more to come than that, this 'Scottish community centre' will be looking more like the peoples embassy.
Nae thing like community. Football wouldn’t be what it is without it. To Gregg and every other Scot supporting their country this summer, on both sides of the border. We hope you have an absolute blinder. The Brazilians may be looking to school you on good old Joga Bonito, but make no mistake that Fitba doesn’t look kindly on any nonsense behaviour.
Long live Scotland. Long live Auld Hag.
