Frying pan swiped by cattle rustlers

As A teenager at the start of the sixties, the last thing I wanted to do was spend two weeks of the summer holidays touring the scottish Highlands with my parents in our Ford Prefect. Anything to do with cars usually excited me, but my father’s driving was another matter. The first challenge came soon enough: traffic lights on a hill. Engine revving, mother (who couldn’t drive) issuing instructions; father beetroot-faced; me, in the back seat, wedged between mountains of pillows and ex-Army blankets — the bare essentials for luxury camping back then — wishing the world would swallow me up. There followed a series of similar experiences during our first day. That evening, at our campsite, it was voted 2-1 that ‘the views being so nice we should just stay here and go for long walks’. However, after several days of rain, so heavy that even the midges came into our tents to dry out, we packed up and headed for home. At lunchtime, dad pulled into a lay-by at the end of a farm track. Primus stoves were lit, the frying pan and billycans got going. I don’t know why bacon, beans and fried bread washed down with a mug of scalding tea always tasted so good outdoors. As our meal progressed, a herd of cows gradually edged nearer and were competing to see which one could wedge its head furthest through the bars of the gate towards our lunch spot. The smell of frying bacon seemed to be unleashing a bovine hysteria. what with the cows, it was impossible to enjoy what remained of lunch, so we hurriedly packed up, left the bellowing herd behind and got back on the road. In our panic to flee, the frying pan had been left behind. Urgent manoeuvres followed — a seven-point turn, grass verges flattened on both sides of the road — and back we went to the lunch stop. But the frying pan had gone — vanished never to be seen again. Only those darned cows saw who took it! Ian S. Clark, Freuchie, Fife.