Donald Johnston, 1953 Lamlash chandler 2018
It will soon be summer and, if the weather is being kind, Lamlash will be swarming with excited children fishing for crabs and cannonballing off the pier. Sadly one essential ingredient will be missing: Donald Johnston will no longer be behind the counter of Johnston’s Marine Stores. Donald, often gruff, sometimes genial, ever erudite, died suddenly at the age of 64 in January after running the shop for 47 years.
Donald James Allan Johnston was born on August 2 1953 in Doncaster where his father was stationed with the RAF.
In time the family moved briefly to Devon and Donald started his schooling there with older brother Iain and younger brother Douglas.
However, on his father’s retirement from the RAF in 1960 the family re-located to Arran and bought The Old Pier Café and adjacent shop in Lamlash and settled in a house on Bungalow Road. Donald’s schooling in Devon must have been a success, be- cause after his first day in Lamlash Primary School a class-mate complained to his mother: ‘That Johnston boy can read with his eyes shut!’
In the 1960s, pupils who were expected to take Highers had to attend Rothesay Academy, but there was no school accommodation, just individual digs. Donald quickly became independent living away from home, and while he was a keen rugby player, playing for the Rothesay First XV, he could not wait to get away from the place.
At 16 he went to the University of Strathclyde and, although in his own opinion a ‘genius at physics’, he really couldn’t be bothered with the maths. After his first year he returned to Lamlash, never to leave.
The time in Glasgow was not totally wasted, however. Strathclyde Union were unexpectedly flush with cash that year, and rock and blues fanatic Donald got to see all the major bands of the day either in the union or at Green’s Playhouse.
Back in Lamlash, his fa- ther had sold the café but kept the little shop. Donald and brother Douglas began to use it as a base for diving, catching and selling scallops and sea urchins, while older brother Iain ran the Holy Isle Ferry.
The brothers started up their own company, Vortex Diving, working on moorings, unsnagging propellers and at one time contracted to descale the legs of an oil rig which wintered one year in Lamlash.
The diving also produced a fascinating collection of salvaged articles from the bay, and Donald began to curate a mini-museum in the window of the ever-expanding Marine Stores.
By the time Douglas left to pursue his own university education, the shop had almost accidentally become a chandlery, fishing and dive shop. Donald continued as a working diver, filling diving bottles with his compressor, hiring out rowing boats and working on his beloved Seagull outboards, often for seven days a week.
Due to Health and Safety regulations and his own health problems, he was forced to give up the diving and hiring of boats but he continued to diversify into other areas, especially outof-print books, building up a wonderful collection of Arran and nautical material, both for his own collection and for sale in the shop and later online.
In 1994 he published his first book, Arran Shipwrecks, the result of years of research in The National Archives, the Public Record Office and the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. For the last few years he was working on a history of the convoys in Lamlash Bay duirng the First World War, a book that is currently at the editing stage and will eventually be published.
In 1999 Donald hatched a plot to hijack some of the Tall Ships heading for Greenock. Having discovered that the finish of the race was to be five nautical miles east of Pillar Rock Lighthouse on Holy Isle he instigated an invitation to all the skippers in the race to call in to Lamlash. No one had any idea if any of these magnificent vessels would turn up but in the end the bay was crampacked with 20 spectacular ships.
There is little doubt that the subsequent Tall Ships visit and Lamlash’s 2011 Marine Festival would never have happened without Donald’s original dream and vision.
Donald married Heather, another music and book fanatic, in 1986 and the family was completed with the arrival of son Matthew. He was a devoted father, encouraging Matthew’s various obsessions from conjuring to film-making, but the tap dancing was a bit of a challenge. After years of trying to educate his son in the blues to no avail all changed the day Donald, inspired by B B King, acquired an Epiphone 335 electric guitar.
Within weeks, Matt was playing better than his father ever would and Donald was thrilled to follow and encourage Matt’s musical career.
In the early 1990s Donald also rediscovered the joy of live gigs, the 1980s being in his opinion ‘the decade music died’, and he and Heather made numerous trips to Glasgow and Edinburgh to see blues legends both fa- mous and obscure. They rarely managed longer holidays with Heather working in Arran High School and Donald working seven days a week during the tourist season. Donald hated leaving the shop for too long. It was more than just a business to him – it was his way of life and his passion.
He was as happy instructing small children in the art of catching crabs as he was selling expensive fishing tackle to adults or sharing obscure details of Lamlash and Arran history with interested customers.
Donald loved Arran, he loved the pub, he loved gardening and cooking and music. He loved his family. He will be greatly missed on Lamlash Pier by visitors and locals alike.