A retrospective look at the Roamer columns of the early 1990s
It would appear that the tourist board AGM was something of a sedate affair this year. Until, of course, the membership’s participation got started. Various workshop groups were formed, with each having to come up with ways of ‘ensuring the generation of extra cash for the organisation’. These ranged from suggestions of a tourist board 500 Club to broadening the search for sponsorship of brochures. George Scobbie came out with a classic: ‘I reckon,’ said he, ‘that we should have food and drink vending machines for people queuing in the tourist office.’ Not such an unworkable suggestion, especially as the premises had previously been transformed into a dormitory, with 18 ‘towrists’ bedding down there on one particular night during the season.
Were you in the procession on Tuesday morning – from Lochy Bridge to the BA Road End? Not a very long procession, thinks you. Well, it is if it’s a quarter to nine, and you’re all stuck behind a steamroller which won’t give way to any other vehicle. The result was a build-up of traffic such that nobody could get off Lochy Bridge to head for town. We were all simply steamrollered into submission.
Quite a few locals had a good look at the cleared area of the Parade which is destined to become a taxi rank. And most of them recognised the familar red brickwork of the foundations of the Garrison Nissen Hut which doubled as our school canteen for a while in the late 1940s.
I note that the HIDB is gearing up for Europe! A press release was sent out by the board eulogising about Highland ski-ing. It itemised the tariffs of the various ski centres. But, believe it or not, HIDB’s word processors don’t have £ signs – so all of the costings had to be inked in!
I’M WRITING THIS IN LARGE LETTERS SO THAT I.M. CAMERON – YES, CAMERON, NOT JOLLY – CAN MAKE IT OUT WITHOUT HIS SPECS. IAN McCORQUODALE FOUND A PAIR OF BLUE RIMMED GLASSES IN A LIZARS OF GLASGOW SPECTACLE CASE A FEW DAYS BACK WHEN HE WAS TIDYING UP HIS GAELIC BUS. AND, DESPITE SEVERAL ATTEMPTS TO TRACE I.M. CAMERON – THE BEARER OF THE NAME INSIDE THE CASE – THE SPECS ARE STILL UNCLAIMED. THEY WERE LEFT IN THE BUS IN THE FORT WILLIAM AREA. SO, IF I.M. CAMERON IS OUT THERE, SOMEWHERE, AND CAN GET SOMEBODY TO READ THIS , PERHAPS HE CAN MAKE ‘CONTACT’?
I liked this story so much that I thought I would put it into rhyme – and reason.
It’s called ‘James Macintyre’s Farewell to his Contact Lenses’. And it’s in two parts, with the other half next week
It was five in the morning, a new day was dawning, And Sandy was awfully dry.
Down to the kitchen, his throat was fair itching, This thirst he could not deny.
Next to the old wally dug sat his personal glass, Lemon barley was what Sandy desired.
Tap water to pour in, before he got tore in,
And he drank down all he required.
Then back up to bed, to lay down his head,
To sleep till perhaps round midday.
As quiet as a mouse, so’s not to wake the house, Went Sandy, his thirst all away.
But at ten on the dot he was up like a shot
For, alas, it had now come to pass.
‘You’re in hot water’! shouted Cindy, his daughter, ‘If you’ve drunk from your favourite glass’. ‘Whatever’s the matter – it was just barley watter’, Moaned Sandy when Cindy he faced.
It was then that she told him – she couldn’t well scold him, ‘Dad, your drink had been laced’!
You see James, Cindy’s man, of the Macintyre Clan, At Towser’s big ‘do’ the evening did pass.
With the in-laws he was stopping, and went to bed after popping
Two things in poor Sandy’s glass.
Before going to sleep he’d put in to steep These items in Sandy’s pint pot.
In a solution that cleanses, he’d left two contact lenses, And Sandy had swallowed the lot!
Piece of dialogue at the Mill between John Stevenson and Angie Ryan.
John: ‘Do you know the Lawries in Kinlochleven?’ Angie: ‘Aye, KRT – Kinlochleven Road Transport.’
Fairly elderly gentleman came in to examine the wares at the Marshall & Pearson sale in the Stag’s Head. Got hold of an alloy wheelbarrow, and tested it by pushing it along the carpet. ‘It’s got to be light’, he explained. ‘It’s a present for my mother – she’s over 80’. He bought it, so I do hope she fancied her barra.
Words didn’t fail the local railwayman who woke up in a sweat at 6.20am because he should have reported in to the depot at 6am. Swore. Grabbed his gear. Phoned a taxi. Reached the engine sheds at 6.40am to be met with the query: ‘What are you doing here? You’re on a rest day’. Swore. Phoned a taxi. And was back in bed again by 7am.
Lochaber Rugby Club emerged ‘Try-umphant’ from the finals of the Fort William Police Sports Quiz. But the quizmaster and a local football ‘aficionado’ were having something of a chequered evening. One question, surprisingly, floored the latter – ‘Which sport was played by the great Brazilian footballer, Rivelino’? And then he was stumped by ‘At which football ground do the crowd get their Thrills’? In fairness, he did manage to answer the question pitched at him as to who had played for both Rangers and Celtic on the same day. (Glasgow Police Pipe Band).