Coming up with a name for our website caused a fair bit of scratching of heads and daft suggestions. A good name should be relevant and memorable. Some of us liked the idea of Turnip Times – that irreverent name for the Mearns Leader. Who’d have thought someone would have bagged that website already?!
Anyway, before we had a newspaper in Stonehaven, we had a town crier employed by the town council. His job was to bellow out proclamations, having attracted attention by ringing a bell. Hence his being known as the bellman.
And it could be that the rocks down at the harbour where the harbour master’s office sits was a good place to stand and summons the folks of the old town, as that promontory is called Bellman’s Head.