More Roamerisms from the early 1990s

The saga of phone boxes in Spean continues to keep the community council busy. Over a year ago the red kiosk at the bridge was condemned as a traffic hazard - it took 40 years for that to be announced. It was decreed two new phone boxes were be located in the village. These were duly sited and sighted, but haven’t been operational for a year.

Meanwhile the red box at the bridge continued to serve its purpose – while the two new kiosks had rope tied round them. At last the new ones are operational – but there’s no light in them. Where is there a ‘lit-up’ phone box? In the original red kiosk – but the telephone has been taken out of it. They’re not seeing the light in the public phonebox in Roy Bridge, either.

That’s Highlands & Islands Enterprise (HIE) launched then. Nine of the 10 local enterprise companies within the aegis of HIE - are you with me so far? have ‘enterprise’ after their name. Like Inverness Enterprise, Skye & Lochalsh Enterprise, Orkney Enterprise. Ours – Lochaber Limited - is the exception.

I have, in front of me, a copy of the Nikka News. The chairman of Nikka, the original Japanese whisky company, is Takeshi Taketsuru who, as you will know, is also chairman of Ben Nevis Distillery.

On his return home from a recent visit to Fort William, after seeing the resumption of whisky distilling at the Ben Nevis, he took with him all the local papers which covered the story - Roamer Column and all - and all the words and pictures have been reproduced in the latest Nikka News.

Apparently we now have the cue for a new whisky which is to be named ‘The End Blend’. The End Blend? Well may you ask.

It is being produced solely for the Scottish Crafts and Whisky Centre in Fort William to mark the contention by the proprietor of this West End establishment that the West Highland Way ends in the vicinity of the portals of his emporium.

The label depicts a wayfarer in shorts – well, he would be on a whisky bottle label – completing the long and winding road down Lundavra towards a sign proclaiming ‘Fort William. Now for a drop of The End Blend’.

So now we await with interest the emergence at the Glen Nevis ‘end’ of drams like ‘Achriabach Amber’, ‘Achintee Angels Share’ and ‘Glen Nevy Bevy’.

He wasn’t a West Highland Wayfarer. No, but he certainly was an enterprising backpacker. There he was, standing in the bus shelter at Claggan Road end, wielding a small branch of a tree on the end of which was a large piece of cardboard with ‘Destination Mallaig’ crayonned on it. It was pouring rain, but he remained dry as he pointed his sign out of the shelter. And he got a lift.

Al Ness, the fella, not the place name, has opened the upstairs of the Granite House as an additional sales floor for the J&K (&A) Ness gift shop. And the posties had a field day taking every item of stock into the premises.

Never in the annals of Royal Mail has so much material been delivered to one shop at one time. And, I’m delighted to say, among the packages was a large clock, reminiscent of the one which fronted the old Post Office.

The Ness clock, only a few yards away from the site of the old Post Office, will provide yet another timely cog in the regeneration of the west end of town.

You’ll have read about Macdonald’s Smoked Produce in Glenuig and the fact Smokin’ Simon has been perfecting a new line – smoked alligator! Well, on Monday, a towrist couple from furth of Scotland came in to the Glenuig Smokery to have a look round. In one of the freezers was, shall we say, ‘half an alligator’.

The visitors gazed at it and asked where it had come from. Quick as a flash, a sales rep who was paying a call to Smokin’ Simon’s premises, replied. ‘Oh, they’re bred around here. Did you not see them in the water close to the shore’? The lady shrieked and ran, yelling at the top of her voice to her children who were playing outside: ‘Martin, Susanne, get back in the car quick. There’s alligators over there’!

We all had a flutter on the Grand National on Saturday. And, on Monday, there were big queues at the payout counters in local betting shops. Notable among the winning punters was Pat Cain, who was waiting his turn to collect at Ladbrokes.

Pat, and a half dozen other successful locals in the queue, chatted away till it was his turn to ‘cain the bookie’.

He handed over his betting slip. One look at it from the other side of the counter was enough for Pat to be told instantly: ‘That’s not ours, Pat, it’s for Parade Racing.’

So poor Pat the punter, who had come all the way along the street during his lunch break from Wynne the Butchers, where he works, had to retrace his steps to Parade Racing – the bookie’s office directly above Wynne’s!

Next day, Paul Kearney was asked to put on a football bet for a pal. The right money was folded into the betting slip so Paul didn’t bother looking at it.

Handed the lot over the counter and was met with the comment: ‘I’m surprised a Celtic fan like you is having a bet on Motherwell to beat them tonight’! Aye, Paul had been an unwitting messenger with a fairly large wager on ’Well. Pity, though, he hadn’t doubled the bet – he’d have had some consolation as Motherwell won!