PARA HANDY
Enjoy our classic Scottish short story
Para Handy has been immortalised on stage and screen but the skipper of the Vital Spark, a Clyde puffer, began his adventures in print, created by writer Neil Munro, under the pen name Hugh Foulis, and first appearing in the Glasgow Evening News in 1905.
The tales of the Gaelic skipper, who, along with his crew, delivered goods from Glasgow up and down the west coast, have entertained Scots for generations.
Today, from an anthology published by Birlinn, Sunday Post readers can climb aboard the Vital Spark once more.
“It’s either a rise in pay,” he said to himself, “or he’s heard aboot the night we had in Campbeltown. That’s the worst of high jeenks; they’re aye stottin’ back and hittin’ you on the nose; if it’s no’ a sore heid, you’ve lost a poundnote, and if it’s nothing you lost, it’s somebody clypin’ on you.” But when he got to the office and was shown into the owner’s room, he was agreeably enough surprised to find that though there was at first no talk about a rise of pay, there was, on the other hand, no complaint.
“What I wanted to see you about, Peter,” said the owner, “is my oldest boy Alick. He’s tired of school and wants to go to sea.”
“Does he, does he? Poor fellow!” said Para Handy. “Och, he’s but young yet, he’ll maybe get better. Hoo’s the mustress keepin’?”
“She’s very well, thank you, Peter,” said the owner. “But I’m anxious about that boy of mine. I feel sure that he’ll run away some day on a ship; he’s just the very sort to do it and I want you to help me.
“I’m going to send him one trip with you, and I want you to see that he’s put off the notion of being a sailor – you understand? I don’t care what you do to him so long as you don’t break a leg on him, or let him fall over the side. Give him it stiff.”
“Chust that!” said the captain.“Iss he a boy that reads novelles?”
“Fair daft for them!” said the owner. “That’s the cause of the whole thing.”
“Then I think I can cure him in wan trip, and it’ll no’ hurt him either.”
“I’ll send him down to the Vital Spark on Wednesday, just before you start,” said the owner. “And, by the way, if you manage to sicken him of the idea I wouldn’t say but there might be a small increase in your wages.”
“Och, there”s no occasion for that,” said Para Handy.
On the Wednesday a boy about 12 years of age, with an Eton suit and a Saturday-toMonday hand-bag, came down to the wharf in a cab alone, opened the door of the cab hurriedly, and almost fell into the arms of
Para Handy, who was on shore to meet him.
“Are you the apprentice for the Fital Spark?” asked the captain affably. “Your name’ll be Alick?”
“Yes,” said the boy. “Are you the captain?” “That’s me,” said the captain. “Gie me a haad o’ your portmanta,” and taking it out of Alick’s hand he led the way to the side of the wharf, where the Vital Spark was lying, with a cargo of coals that left her very little freeboard, and all her crew on deck awaiting developments.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “we havena any gangway, but I’ll hand you doon to Dougie, and you’ll be aal right if your gallowses’ll no’ give way.”
“What! Is that the boat I’m to go on?” cried the boy, astounded.
“Yes,” said the captain, with a little natural irritation. “And what’s wrong with her? The smertest boat in the tred. Stop you till you see her goin’ roond Ardlamont!”
he owner of the Vital Spark one day sent for her captain, who oiled his hair, washed himself with hot water and a scrubbing brush, got the Tar to put three coats of blacking on his boots, attired himself in his good clothes, and went up to the office in a state of some anxiety.
“But she’s only a coal boat; she’s very wee,” said Alick. “I never thought my father would apprentice me on a boat like that.”
“But it’s aye a beginnin’,” explained the captain, with remarkable patience. “You must aye start sailorin’ some way, and there’s many a man on the brudge of Atlantic liners the day that began on boats no bigger than the Fital Spark. If you don’t believe me, Dougie’ll tell you himsel’. Here, Dougie, catch a haad o’ oor new apprentice, and watch you don’t dirty his clean collar wi’ your hands.” So saying, he slung Alick down to the mate, and 10 minutes later the Vital Spark, with her new apprentice on board, was coughing her asthmatic way down the river outward bound for Tarbert.
The boy watched the receding wharf with mixed feelings.
“What do you say to something to eat?” asked the captain, as soon as his command was under way. “I’ll tell the Tar to boil you an egg, and you’ll have a cup of tea. You’re a fine high-spurited boy, and a growin’ boy needs aal the meat he can get. Watch that rope; see and no’ dirty your collar; it would never do to see an apprentice wi’ a dirty collar.”
Alick took the tea and the boiled egg, and thought regretfully that life at sea, so far, was proving very different from what he had expected.
“Where are we bound for?” he asked. “Oh! a good long trup,” said the captain. “As far as Tarbert and back again. You’ll be an AB [a naval rating, an able seaman] by the time you come back.”
“And will I get wearing brass buttons?” inquired Alick.
“Brass buttons!” exclaimed Para Handy. “Man they’re oot o’ date at sea aalthegither; it’s nothing but hooks and eyes, and far less trouble to keep them clean.”
“Can I start learning to climb the mast now?” asked Alick, who was naturally impatient to acquire the elements of his new profession.
“Climb the mast!” cried Para Handy, horrified. “There wass never an apprentice did that on my vessel, and never will; it would dirty aal your hands! I see a shoo’er o’ rain comin’; there’s nothing worse for the young sailor than gettin’ damp; away doon below like a good boy, and rest you, and I’ll give you a roar when the rain’s past.”
Alick went below bewildered. In all the books he had read there had been nothing to prepare him for such coddling on a first trip to sea; so far, there was less romance about the business than he could have found at home in Athole Gardens. It rained all afternoon, and he was not permitted on deck; jelly “pieces” were sent down to him at intervals. The Tar was continually boiling him eggs; he vaguely felt some dreadful indignity in eating them, but his appetite compelled him, and the climax of the most hum-drum day he had ever spent came at night when the captain insisted on his taking gruel to keep off the cold, and on his fastening his stocking round his neck.
Alick was wakened next morning by the Tar standing at the side of his bunk with tea on a tray.
“Apprentices aye get their breakfast in their bed,” said the Tar, who had been carefully coached by the captain what he was to do. “Sit up and take this, and then have a nice sleep to yoursel’, for it’s like to be rainin’ aal day, and you canna get on deck.”
“Surely I can’t melt,” said the boy, exasperated. “I’ll not learn much seamanship lying here.”
“You would maybe get your daith o’ cold,” said the Tar, “and a nice-like job we would have nursin’ you.” He turned to go on deck when an idea that Para Handy had not given him came into his head, and with great solemnity he said to the boy, “Perhaps you would like to see a newspaper; we could put ashore and buy wan for you to keep you from wearyin’.”
“I wouldn’t object to ‘Comic Cuts’,” said Alick, finding the whole illusion of life on the deep slipping from him.
But ‘Comic Cuts’ did not come down. Instead, there came the captain with a frightful and familiar thing – the strapful of schoolbooks to escape from which Alick had first proposed a sailor’s life.
Para Handy had sent to Athole Gardens for them the previous day. “Shipmate ahoy!” he cried, cheerily stumping down to the fo’c’sle.
You must aye start sailorin’ some way, and there’s many a man on the brudge of Atlantic liners that began on boats no bigger thaan the Fital Spark
“You”ll be frightened you left your books behind, but I sent the Tar for them, and here they are,” and, unbuckling the strap, he poured the unwelcome volumes on the apprentice’s lap.
“Who ever heard of an apprentice sailor taking his schoolbooks to sea with him?” said Alick, greatly disgusted. “Who ever heard a’ anything else?” retorted the captain. “Do you think a sailor doesna need any educaation? Every apprentice has to keep going at us Latin and Greek, and Bills of Parcels, and the height of Ben Nevis, and Grammar, and aal the rest of it.
“That’s what they call navigation, and if you havena the navigation, where are you? Chust that, where are you?”
“Do you mean to tell me when you were an apprentice you learned Latin and Greek, and all the rest of that rot?” asked Alick, amazed.
“Of course I did,” said the captain unblushingly. “Every day till my heid wass sore!”
“Nature Knowledge, too?” asked Alick. “Nature Knowledge!” cried Para Handy. “At Nature Knowledge I wass chust sublime! I could do it with my eyes shut. Chust you take your books, Alick, like a sailor, and wire into your navigation, and it’ll be the brudge for you aal the sooner.”
There were several days of this unromantic life for the boy, who had confidently expected to find the career of a sea apprentice something very different. He had to wash and dress himself every morning as scrupulously as ever he did at home for Kelvinside Academy; Para Handy said that was a thing that was always expected from apprentices, and he even went further and sent Alick back to the waterbucket on the ground that his neck and ears required a little more attention.
A certain number of hours each day, at least, were ostensibly devoted to the study of “Navigation”, which, the boy was disgusted to find, was only another name for the lessons he had had at the Academy. He was not allowed on deck when it was wet without an umbrella, which the captain had unearthed from somewhere; it was in vain he rebelled against breakfast in bed, gruel, and jelly “pieces”.
“If this is being a sailor, I would sooner be in a Sunday School,” said Alick finally.
“Och! you’re doin’ splendid,” said Para Handy. “A fine high-spurited laad! We’ll make a sailor of you by the time we’re back at Bowling if you keep your health. It’s pretty cold the night; away doon to your bunk like a smert laad, and the Tar’ll take doon a hot-watter bottle for your feet in a meenute or two.”
When the Vital Spark got back to the Clyde, she was not three minutes at the wharf when her apprentice deserted her. Para Handy went up to the owner’s office in the afternoon with the boy’s school-books and the Saturday-toMonday bag.
“I don”t know how you managed it,” said Alick’s father, quite pleased; “but he’s back yonder this morning saying a sailor’s life’s a fraud, and that he wouldn’t be a sailor for any money. And by the fatness of him, I should say you fed him pretty well.”
“Chust that!” said Para Handy. “The Tar would be aye boilin’ an egg for him noo and then. Advice to a boy iss not much use; the only thing for it iss kindness, chust kindness. If I wass wantin’ o keep that boy at the sailin’, I would have taken the rope’s-end to him, and he would be a sailor chust to spite me. There wass some taalk aboot a small rise in the pay, but och—”
“That’s all right, Peter; I’ve told the cashier,” said the owner, and the captain of the Vital Spark went down the stair beaming.