RETRO Roamer
Retro Roamer - more late summer 1980s musings
Local worthy making his way home up the hill at 2.30am on Saturday. With a very good shot in him, he was spotted and stopped by the ‘polis’ who wanted to know his plans for the rest of the early hours. ‘I’m going to a lecture,’ the bold boy advised. Came the not unexpected Constabulary response: ‘A lecture? At this time of day?’ ‘That’s right,’ slurred local worthy. ‘When I get home in this state the wife’s going to give me the longest lecture I’ve ever had in my life’!
Monday lunchtime in a town takeaway. In walks a customer, her head in the hood of her anorak because of the Fort rain and wind. She selects a piece of cheese and a couple of oatcakes. ‘Have you any garlic?’ she asks. To which the ever-alert counterhand replies: ‘You’ll have to go to the corner shop for that, madam’. ‘Madam’ looks at him and says: ‘You’re the only one in town who’s recognised me’! It was Thelma Barlow – Mavis Riley of Coronation Street fame. She was spotted later in the day when she had dinner in the Crannog. Was the ever-harassed Derek with Mavis? Well, I don’t really know.
A European customer was speaking to Divy up in the Snow Goose restaurant on Aonach Mor. ‘Have you some Pils?’ the visitor asked. Divy went through the back to have a look and came back and said: ‘We’ve got Anadin or aspirin, if you’d like a couple’. European gives Divy an odd look and explained he was hoping to buy a bottle of Pils lager.
Roy Bridge, Spean Bridge and Achnacarry Community Council has come up with the answer to a question I’ve heard numerous times from several other community councils and tenants’ and residents’ associations. ‘How do you get Lochaber District Council to reply to letters’? Well, the above mentioned community council has photocopied all of its unanswered correspondence – some of it going back over a year – and delivered the file by hand to the chairman and chief executive of Lochaber District Council. Other organisations may care to take note.
It must have been a pretty uplifting experience for the lorry driver who arrived at Scotstown, Strontian, last Friday. He had delivery and collection notes for DAF/British Leyland at Scotstoun, Strathclyde. Somehow he’d made the longer haul to the Highlands and across on the Corran Ferry. As ex-Provost Margaret Murphie used to say: ‘Decisions are being made for Lochaber by some well-intentioned people in the south who don’t know how to read a map.’
It pays to advertise. Following AA man Gordon Clark’s successful mechanical work on a grounded commercial helicopter last week, a Sea King from Lossiemouth landed in the West End car park, close to the AA HQ. On its windscreen were two stickers - AA Homestart and AA Relay. Honest!
A sister paper of the Lochaber News excelled itself last weekend in its report about the intention of British Waterways Board to market and promote the Caledonian Canal. It stated: ‘By 17 votes to three, the region’s libraries and leisure committee decided not to contribute towards the cost of appointing a proposed tourism development officer for the Caledonian Hotel. My only surprise in reading this, apart from ‘canal’ becoming ‘hotel’, was that it wasn’t a 20-0 decision!
Wattie Whitehead got a new hearing aid. For the first time in long enough he was hearing everything as clear as a bell. So Wattie went for a celebration drink in the masonic club. There he got into conversation with a group of patrons. The likely lads soon twigged Wattie had a new ear piece and after 10 minutes of normal banter and chat, they started to whisper among themselves and communicate by miming. Poor Wattie hadn’t a hear-in, so he adjusted the aid until it was sounding like the steam train’s whistle. But he still couldn’t make out a word. Until, that is, the table erupted in laughter to give the show away.
Maurice Walsh wrote many a pawky novel, not the least humorous of which was ‘The Road to Nowhere’. It is fitting then that the Irish author – who began his working career in Scotland as an excise officer at Ben Nevis Distillery – may be succeeded by a modern day writer who will pen a historical follow-up with the working title ‘The Road through An Aird’. Because, from what I’m hearing via the Scottish Office, the continuation of the new A82 through the reclaimed land and branching off to Caol may never happen.
The police description of the successful search for a minister and two companions who got stranded between Loch Morar and Loch Arkaig was particularly apt. ‘Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team and an RAF helicopter crew went out to search for the stranded trio and completed their task in their usual accomplished manner, with the minister and his companions being uplifted on Sunday morning.’
A cow on local croft land didn’t exactly jump over the moon prior to Lochaber Agricultural Show. But it did make a pretty good job of climbing up a ladder! Apparently said ladder had been placed in a strategic position to protect flowers and plants prior to the show judging, particularly as it had been noted one cow might take a shine to the exotic colours as a change from its usual diet. So what did the cow do? It simply stuck its head in between the rungs of the ladder and chomped happily away at the rows of exhibits. Then, satisfied, the cow lifted its head and charged off with the ladder round its neck!