The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
I have been getting hot and bothered by what’s in my bulging postbag this week
“Get yourself ready. Stand up and say to them whatever I command you. Do not be terrified by them, or I will terrify you before them.” (Jeremiah 1:17) When God has made something clear, the only action required by us is to get on with obeying it. So, get ready, stand up, and do not be terrified. A.P.D.
All I did was mention how I was lolloping about in my oversized Hawaiian shirt like the dimunitive Danny Devito during an all-too-brief sunny spell the other week and it prompted a veritable deluge of correspondence. OK, it was just four messages, but that was good for me. None of them was calling me rude names or suggesting some impossible act that I should do to myself – always a bonus, I think.
They were all very kind and one man from somewhere near Gairloch e-mailed me a photo of another huge Hawaiian shirt. That’s nice, I thought. Then I read the note and realised he was inside it. Yes, Mr Wester Ross is a mere 5ft 5in, and it showed. Or rather just the top of his head and his toes did. The picture was taken on a Spanish beach three years ago and he had somehow got roped into promoting some club by wearing a massive flowery shirt that would have been loosefitting on The Incredible Hulk while walking around for two hours with his girlfriend at the time, who happened to be five inches taller than himself.
The free beer would normally have made it worthwhile, of course. However, his girlfriend, to whom he planned to propose the next day, thought the whole idea was so ridiculous that she ditched him after 15 minutes. To make matters worse, when he made it back to the hotel, he was mortified to discover she had run off with the hotel manager who, wait for it, was an inch shorter than him. Mr Ross never saw either of them again. You sure you’re not making this up? OK, fine.
These Inverness girls were always known to be fickle, Mr Ross. Don’t worry about it. And if you want to make a few bob, you should send the story to a women’s magazine with the picture of that shirt. I am sure they, too, will be discreet for the sake of your new missus. Things have gone much better with her and you have been hitched for just a few months.
“Then again, she is only an inch taller than me,” you write. Splendid. I’m very hopeful things will be fine this time.
Then a delightful note arrived from a woman in Inverness. Let’s just call her Beatrice. If, however, you know a Beatrice in Inverness, it isn’t her. Unless she tells you herself that it is. Good, glad we cleared that up.
Beatrice was inspired to tell me of her trip over here to Lewis in the long, hot summer of 1989. She loved the Uig district, where she explored areas like Geshader, Ungeshader and Drinnishader. Actually, that last one is on Harris, Beatrice. Still, there were no satnavs then so it wasn’t your fault.
Up at the end of the road past Breanish, in Mealista, Beatrice found another world. A blazing sun was high in the sky and everything was quiet. It was so still that even the local chickens were fast asleep in the middle of the road, she tells me. There was no one and nothing in sight – except sheep. Even they looked dozy. However, it was uncomfortably sticky and she wondered how to cool down.
Beatrice then found a meandering stream. After checking the coast was clear of cockerels and crofters, she just peeled off and got in. Brazen as you like. The nicknacks came off and in went the bold Beatrice up to her tickly bits. If anyone had seen her, it would have been a major scandal. That part of Uig around Breanish is known for the legends around the Dominican nunnery which once stood there and which led to many spooky stories about Tigh nan Cailleachan Dubha, or House of the Black Old Ladies, as it was known.
Nearby are wartime air-raid shelters and they, too, were frequently mixed up with the stories of the weird women of Breanish. I was taken there once on an August bank holiday and told by my uncle that if I didn’t stop being a brat and beating up my wee brother I would be dragged underground, there to be set upon by hordes of killer nuns.
He was in the Free Church, obviously.
Like many others who were warned to behave with tales of women living in the ground at Breanish, I was deeply traumatised. It took years for me to begin a slow recovery. Then the film Sister Act came out, starring the excitable Whoopi Goldberg, and brought it all back. That film made me, and every other Lewis lad who lived in fear of the nuns’ story, sweat a bit.
And I’m sweating now, thinking about what could have happened if an innocent Uigeach shepherd, for instance, had chanced on the stream where bare Beatrice was wiggling in the waters by the ruins of the nunnery. If she had then suddenly stood up and screamed, the poor fellow would probably have keeled over with the shock.
The scary ladies of my childhood would have claimed another victim.