Complete New Tales of Para Handy (6 page)

“Five in the afternoon came and Vickery gave the Tar the keys to his hoose and sent him to fetch a gallon jar so they could tak' some refreshments back on board wi' them. And the first person he met ass he wass comin' back along the street wi' the jar wass his mither-in-law! ‘What are you doin' still here, Colin,' she cried briskly, ‘when you should be well on your way up Kilbrannan Sound — and whaur are ye goin' wi' that jar?'

“The Tar tried to explain in a way that wouldna incriminate him but she gave him a sharp look and reminded him that the chob at Inveraray wouldna wait for effer. ‘Get you to Tarbert, Colin Turner' she said. ‘Or you'll answer to me for it!'

“Here and when they left to go back to the yat did Vickery's brither and anither couple o' his cronies no' come wi' them, and wi' their ain jars, and the perty sterted aal over again. At eight o'clock Vickery consulted his watch and annoonced that it wisna worth settin' off that night, they'd wait till next mornin' and get awa' sharp: and he went back ashore wi' his brither and left the Tar in charge.

“Next morning, the Tar woke at seven and there wass no sign of Vickery at aal. But within the hour he wass back, wi' a grey face, a short temper and a heid as spiky as a bagful o' old spanners. ‘Iss this Campbeltown or Cairo,' he cried, ‘and am I comin or goin'? Be a good lad, Colin, and nip ashore and get a can o' mulk at the dairy and a pooder frae the chemist, and if I can find where I pit ma heid we'll mak' a start.

“Who did the Tar meet on the quayside but his wife Lucy, wi' the elder wean on her shoulder and the baby in a pram full o' dirty washin', on her way to the laandry.

“ ‘Colin Turner!' she shouted on him, ‘You should be in Tarbert by noo. Wait till I tell my mither on you!' And though the Tar tried to explain she chust stormed off in a real tizzy but not afore she'd gi'en him the bleckest look he'd effer seen on a wumman.

“When he got back on board the
Midge
he managed to persuade Vickery to loose her from her moorin' and off they set.

“But ass luck wud have it the winds wass against them, and then when they were off Carradale at aboot fower in the afternoon, the sea haar cam' doon like cotton wool and they couldna see the tap o' the mast.

“ ‘It's nae use, Colin,' said Vickery. ‘Ah'm no riskin' the boat in fog like this.' And he picked his way into the harbour at Carradale.

“Pretty soon the Tar foond himsel' in the Inns at the head of the pier and again efferybody seemed to know Vickery and in no time at aal there wass a spree goin'. Wan o' the company wass a Campbeltown cairter caaled McCallum, wi' the by-name o' the Twister, who wass a kizzin o' the Tar's mither-in-law, and a man wi' a dreadful reputation for a dram, so soon they wass aal in full flight.

“The poor Tar had had enough of it and he tried to get his skipper back on board. ‘I will no' be long at aal, Colin,' said Vickery. ‘Why don't you chust awa' ootside and streetch oot on McCallum's cairt and have a snooze? I'll gi'e ye a shout when we're ready to go and we'll be in Tarbert in no time at aal.'

“Well, the Tar went and did chust that, for he wass aalways a man wi a great capacity for sleep. If Dougie was here he would tell you himself. The cairt wass half full o' sacks o' corn so he made himsel' a comfortable bunk and snugged doon.

“So he slept and better slept.

“When he finally woke up it wass seven o'clock next mornin' and broad daylight! He sat up at wance, feart that Vickery had sailed withoot him — and foond they wassna even in Carradale at aal! The cairt was stood at the foot of Main Street in Campbeltown! They wass outside the Ferry Inn and what had woke him wass the din ass Vickery and McCallum kept bangin' on the door to get the landlord to open and gi'e them their mornin's!

“Chust then, who came roond the corner from the close leadin' to his ain single-end but his wife and his mither-inlaw!

“They both clapped eyes on him at the same time and let oot a shriek that even stopped Vickery and the Twister deid in their efforts to break into the Inn.

“ ‘Colin Turner!!! Whaur's your sense o' responsibeelity to your wife and weans! You've mooths to feed and aal you can do iss chust cairry on wi' drink like a Cardiff stoker!'

“It wass ass well for Colin that the cairter, at least, wass chust sober enough to tell his kizzin and her dochter that the poor Tar wass innocent of ony devagation, that he and Vickery had been thrown oot o' the Inn at Carradale at midnight and, having forgot aal aboot the
Midge
, and the Tar asleep in the back of the cairt, had let the horse do the navigation and meandered doon hame to Campbeltown in the wee sma' hours.

“So the Tar neffer made it to the chob at Inveraray, and the chentleman that owned the
Midge
wass in a right tirravee for he had to send a new crew doon frae Tarbert to pick her up from Carradale.

“The only thing that saved the Tar's skin wass that the spurit trade picked up (probably lergely due to Vickery's singlehanded support) and he got his old chob back the next week when the distillery re-opened.

“So, Jum, remember it's not aalways plain sailin' on a yat!”

F
ACTNOTE

Now that the network of steamer services on the Firth of Clyde is but a distant memory, the Mull of Kintyre is unquestionably the most isolated community not just in Scotland, but in all of mainland Britain, and Campbeltown the country's most remote town. In fact in some respects it is more remote from Central Scotland now than it was 100 years ago, when daily services by fast steamer from Glasgow, 80 miles by sea, were usually faster and certainly more comfortable than today's tortuous 140 mile bus journey — which takes four-and-a-half hours each way.

The Tar's journey from Campbeltown on the eastern coast of the narrow peninsula to Machrihanish on the western side must have taken place before August 1906, for otherwise he would not have had to walk!

That month saw open to passenger traffic the splendidly-named Campbeltown and Machrihanish Light Railway Company's services on a narrow-gauge line, an extension of the track originally laid to transport coal for export across the peninsula from the Drumlemble pit to the docks of Campbeltown harbour.

Inevitably christened ‘the wee train' the line remained open for passengers for 25 years, finally closing in 1931 after the shut-down of the coalmine during the 1929 depression.

Carradale lies roughly half-way between the southernmost tip of Kintyre and Tarbert, where the peninsula ‘rejoins' the mainland at Knapdale, and was an established port of call for steamers on passage to Glasgow. Today it remains a popular destination for visitors in the summer months and maintains its traditional fishing industry year-round.

Discussing this storyline with a resident of Campbeltown prior to publication I suggested it was rather far-fetched that I had the horse bring the cart all the way home from Carradale by itself. “Not at all,” he said: “they used to do that from the Tarbert Fair in the old days — and that was twice the distance!”

The seas around the Mull are exposed and subject to violent storms. Hence the construction almost 200 years ago of the Crinan canal, which allows small vessels to move between the Clyde and the Western Highlands in sheltered conditions. The hazards of the Mull are perhaps best exemplified by the fact that in the years before the development of powerful, fast rescue vessels there were not as today, just one, but
three
lifeboat stations within a few miles of each other at its southernmost limits — Campbeltown, Southend and Machrihanish.

D
REAMLAND FOR
D
RINKERS
— This panoramic view of Campbeltown and its bay shows, behind the mother and her two infants, an unbroken phalanx-in-depth of distillery after distillery. There were more than 20 in the town in the years around the turn of the century and the grain they required was a frequent cargo for the puffers, and larger vessels too.

5

Up for the Cup

I
t can be — depending on the particular circumstances at any particular time — either an advantage, or a disadvantage, to be the skipper of a West Coast puffer. In the remotest communities the arrival of the little vessel is a major event, the social (and business) highlight of the month or, in some instances, the year. She may be delivering the bits and pieces of the material world, from mangles to mattresses, which the community has anxiously been waiting for: or she may have come to load a cargo, be it timber or whinstone, barley or roofing slate, the eventual sale of which will provide the cash income necessary to keep the village economy going for another season.

As almost the only link with the outside world, the puffer provides often the sole opportunity such communities have to maintain even the most basic social communication with distant family and friends. Thus the
Vital Spark
has been known to carry a few jars of rhubarb jam (and, most important of all, the recipe for it) from an old lady in Colonsay to her newly-married niece in Greenock, or a border collie pup from a farmer in Ayrshire to his cousin in Appin.

Sometimes Para Handy is flattered by such requests, sometimes irritated by them: it depends on his mood. But, being of a kindly disposition, most of the time he is happy to help.

What can test his generosity to the limit, however, is when the little extra something he is asked to carry is neither animal nor inanimate — but human.

“I've had mair trouble wi' the occasional supercargo than ye'd hae wi' a barrowload o' monkeys,” he told me when I encountered the crew recently in a Gourock hostelry, “but the wan we had last week wass the giddy limit. Neffer, neffer trust a man frae Colintraive. Chust ask Macphail!”

Hearing mention of his name the engineer, who had been sitting hunched over the niggardly fire in the far corner of the bar, turned round and in so doing displayed a monstrous ‘shiner' on his right eye.

“How on earth did Dan come by that?” I asked in astonishment.

“Och, he didn't exactly come by it,” replied Para Handy. “He didn't have to go and look for it at aal, at aal. Somebody gave it to him. Neffer, neffer trust a man from Colintraive.”

And, with only a little further coaxing, he told me the tale.

“It wass partly Dan's own fault, of course,” said the skipper with a nod in the direction of the figure at the fire. “It usually is. You ken yoursel' what he's like. Not exactly full of the milk of human kindness, no, nor exactly the soul of tact or discretion.

“It all started last Friday when we wass picking up a cargo of oak bark at Colintraive.

“You wud see in the papers that the Kyles Athletic fitba' team had managed to get to the third round of the Scottish Cup by beatin' Dunoon Rovers, and then Renfrew Thistle. And who were they drawn to play next but Gleska Rangers themselves! And at Ibrox Park!

“You can imagine the excitement all along the Kyles. The team had gone up to Gleska the day before on the
Minard Castle
and they were stayin' in wan o' they Temperance Hotels — a very wise precaution given their reputation for a spree — ass guests of the Gleska Highlanders Association. Friday afternoon, when the
Columba
called in on her way back from Ardrishaig, maist o' the men of the Kyles villages wass waitin' on Colintraive pier wi' their tin boxes in one hand, and the addresses of their Gleska cousins wrote doon on a bit o' paper in the ither.

“By the time we finished loading on Friday afternoon, the Kyles wass a deserted place indeed. We wass all doon in the fo'c'sle at wir tea when there came a shout frae the pier and Jum went up to see what wass up.

“Here wass Ferguson the innkeeper — and a quiet weekend he wass facin', what wi' all the menfolk awa' tae Ibrox and it too early in the year for ony towerists to be aboot — wi' a young fellow maybe in his early twenties scuffin' his feet beside him.