More items from Roamer columns of 30 years ago
Bet you didn’t know Lochaber boasts a rival to Pavarotti and his aria ‘Nessun Dorma’. Yes, a decade ago, Fergie, mine host at the Clanranald – and built along similar lines to Luciano – recorded Ness Bothan which is played every weekday at 12.03pm on BBC Highland.
It certainly wasn’t the cud that Harry’s cross collie Okki was chewing one morning last week. No, it was a new passport which had just arrived through the letter box for son Donald. By the time Okki was separated from the postal delivery, the dog had made a meal of the passport. Donald had been awaiting his documentation so he could fly to Germany with his mates to see Roger Waters, ex-Pink Floyd, re-enact the hit ‘The Wall’ at – the Berlin Wall. But Okki had got his teeth round the passport and knocked Donald’s nose out of joint. An amazing re-run of the relevant personal information, papers, photos and cash has resulted in another new passport being sent from Glasgow in time. Now it’s up to Donald to claim it when it drops through the letterbox.
‘The Biscuit has Crumbled’. That was the message on placards outside Corpach PO to proclaim the fact Roamer had reached the two score and ten, the half-century, the dreaded 50. On the day, he couldn’t get near the garage to get the car out because well-wishing neighbours had left their calling cards overnight – a great big poster with a flower-bedecked khazi underneath. Yes, a large toilet pan, with blooms floating in it. There’s more. But he can’t tell you about the birthday cards because the wording on some of them were so rude he couldn’t understand them.
Here are some examples of one or two little gems that occupy the pages of the day book on the oil rig where a few Lochaber locals are employed. They have a novel way of passing the non-working time in that they log all the humorous happenings and comments made in the course of the day. For example: ‘That beef roll I had at Sumburgh was so raw it moo-ed at me’, ‘The company policy is, if you want to grow a beard, then on your own head be it’, and, drain cleaner to storeman, ‘It must be really boring doing your job’, ‘My, that syrup sponge fair hurts your teeth’, ‘That guy on the telly swallowing coins can’t be the full shilling’ and ‘Alistair used to have a plastering business but now it’s gone to the wall’.
Do you, like me, never win anything in raffles, draws and sweeps? Well, this week I’ve been doing a wee study into a couple of such fundraisers. And I reckon I’ve cracked it. Take, for example, the latest Inverlochy Hall 200+ Club winners. First prize of £50 to Lochiel Road, second prize to Lochiel Road, and third prize to, yes, you’ve guessed it – Lochiel Road. The answer, obviously is to live in Lochiel Road and you’re in with more than a shout in the village draws and bingo.
On the other hand, over in Caol, there’s a different emphasis. The five cash prizes in the Eagle Club were won by five Macs – three MacDonalds, a MacLean and a MacKinnon.
Three visitors from abroad took their van up the glen at the weekend. In it they had their bikes, as they’re keen motocross men. After a spin up and down the hillsides, they returned to find a sheet of paper under the van wipers. There was a verse on it, which read:
‘The history of this great place,
Demands respect and a sense of grace.
The Man who made the earth and sky
I know has turned very motorbike shy’.
And the note was signed ‘On yer bikes, pals’.
The recipients, of course, were a bit bemused by these last words as they had just been warned OFF their bikes.
Some more verses with the third and final part of Johnny Wilson’s poem ‘I Knew Them All In Corpach’: The ‘Tupper’ when to you he’d speak,
Kept squinting down his ‘Camshron Beak’. John, in his travels, round and round,
Did good trade in ‘Lost and Found’.
By She-Dogs and the Devil’s shirt,
Big Shoo, in fancy, waved a dirk.
Out the axe, and split them aal,
Those ‘posh sailors’ on the ‘Cal Canaal’ Johnnie Boyd has said ‘So long’.
His motto always, ‘Make it strong’.
A wee rascal when at school,
Aye slipping away to break the rule.
Calum MacNaught, the Miller o’ Annat, Seemed like one from another planet. Captain MacPhee, a sailor brave
Seldom, if ever, was storm stayed.
One day with a hurricane at its height,
Said he ‘It’s hell or Harris tonight’.
Old Dol’ Lock – a Highland weaver,
Grew round his face a Highland beaver.
John the Brocair, on the hill.
Was shy and coy as any Jill.
Lazarus MacKinnon, none his like.
I saw him pray behind a dyke.
John D Park could make a shoe,
Was aye sitting there – bent in two.
The proposed siting of a gondola cable car outside Nevisport could result in applications by High Street traders for diverse advertising gimmicks. A giant icecream cone outside Eric’s, a big huge welly at Boots, a massive Stag’s Head outside the Stag’s Head Hotel, Top Bairn seeking to hoist a pedigree pram above his shop front, Marshall & Pearson with a racing bike on one side of the street and a wheelbarrow on the other, giant cheques outside the four High Street banks, a huge half loaf would be better than none at the Harvester and there’s ample scope for big huge inflatable kilties outside the front of various tartan shops.