More Roamerisms from the early 1990s
‘I’ll tell you why I’m phoning’ (as we say in Lochaber) was the opening gambit by a Fort William hotelier to a kindred spirit in the Borders. ‘Have you got a party of French people in on a New Year coach tour?’ The Borders hotel was, indeed, playing host to 40 Free French. ‘Aye, well, could you tell the courier to take an inventory from them all – as we’re short of seven wee vases, a dozen butter dishes, a few dinner plates and Heaven knows how many ashtrays, after they stayed here last night, and I reckon they thought our hotel was staging some form of Collectors Fair – for the Free French!’ Two days later a very large package arrived at the Fort hotel. ‘Fragile, with care’, it said on the outside. And inside it? Seven wee vases, a dozen butter dishes, everything, indeed, bar a partridge in a pear tree.
A few of Earth’s treasures were deposited at the world famous West Highland Museum the other day. Without ceremony. A dumper truck came trundling along the High Street, clattered through Cameron Square, and came to a halt on the museum doorstep. The driver then delivered all the exciting ‘artefacts’ unearthed in the course of the digging up of Middle Street for the ‘service road’. Fiona Marwick, curator secretary of the Mmuseum, duly catalogued the hoard, as follows. ‘A twisted mole trap – minus mole, a cast iron kettle, a wheelbarrow wheel, fire tongs (looking the way you’d expect them to look after supporting a roadway for more than a century), two pickaxes, and, best of all, a length of Fort William Lighting Company cable. This latter is set in bitumen in a wooden trough, and protected by an iron plate – a quite brilliant thing to have.’
Incidentally, lots of people have been asking about the final fate of the Kennedy Monument, for so long the focal point within Cameron Square, but has now been demolished. Well, the many large sections of sandstone form part of the Loch Linnhe shoreline opposite Seafield Gardens. The result has been receiving universal condemnation from the locals. I don’t know where the railings ended up, but there’s a fair chance that Kenny MacKenzie’s bike was still attached to them. Kenny and his contemporaries – myself included – used to chain our bikes to the railings, having cycled into town from the village and Claggan. Then we went up to the YM to play billiards. For some reason we frequently forgot our bikes – and walked home or got a lift to the Road End in the chip van. Kenny was the most forgetful of us all, however, and frequently had to come back into town to collect his bike from in among the railings and Sydie’s posters and placards.
Fort William’s temporary tourist attraction finally flew away on Friday. After being laid up in the West End Car Park for three days. Aye, the Sea King helicopter was on its holidays from Lossie. But it suffered an ailment. Something to do with the Lochaber weather, apparently, and was grounded for treatment. And, during each day the ‘paraffin budgie’ certainly drew the crowds, including classfuls of pupils from Fort William primary and cameramen and camerawomen galore.
Crossed carrier bags caused problems for Alan Worsdall. Alan arrived back in the Fort after a short visit to Manchester, during which he had arranged his baggage for the return trip by way of two Poundstretcher bags. In one was his accumulated washing, the other contained sausage, bacon and eggs for next day’s Paper Mill breakfast fry-up. However, in all the rush to get in to work, you can guess what happened. Yes, Alan dropped off one bag at home, and opened the other one at the Mill. It contained semmit, socks and drawers.
That naturalised Highlander from Stockbridge, Willie Anderson, ken, has bought a budgie. ‘I’m calling it Ken, ken’, Willie told me. ‘I couldnae get a maroon one, otherwise I’d have named it Willie Bauld. Like masel, ken’.
Interesting sight outside the Grand Hotel last Wednesday a ‘Blue Maria’ pulled up. The police driver got out, opened the back door, and ‘let out’ Rotarian Alistair Grant. Alistair had been running late at the Belford and looked like missing the 1pm start of the Rotary meeting. Luckily, he was ‘lifted’ by the polis. Somewhat unfortunately for Alistair, however, his exit from the Blue Maria coincided with the arrival, on foot, of a few Rotarians. So, he hasn’t heard the end of it since.