Pluck up courage to ruffle feathers

BaCK in the 1960s, my mother and I would make regular visits to the island of Lewis from our home in glasgow. My mother hailed from the island and, along with my aunt Chrissie, we would visit a relative, gormelia, on the west side. When we were about to leave to return back to glasgow, it was common for her to offer a going-away gift such as eggs or crowdie, a type of soft cheese. On one occasion, gormelia asked my mother if she would like a hen, and she said that would be very nice. gormelia said: ‘Come this way.’ She took us out to the hen house, where she opened the door and shone in a torch to show all the birds cowering on their perches. ‘take your pick!’ she proclaimed. I don’t know what my somewhat refined city mother thought was involved — a nicely packaged bird, I’d imagine — but she could only stutter: ‘My, I couldn’t do that.’ however, my aunt Chrissie was made of sterner stuff. She reached in, grabbed a plump bird, wrung its neck there and then and handed it to my astonished mother, saying: ‘there you are!’ Back home, we city folk trying to pluck the feathers was another story!

Matthew Fisher, Bearsden, East Dunbartonshire.