How I cured my millennial blues... on a coach trip to Pitlochry with my gran
Looking for a bargain and to close the generation gap Ben Aitken hops on a coach to see how the elder half live
Last year, I went on six coach holidays with a company called Shearings – a so-called ‘Gran Tour’, dreamt up while on the telephone to my great aunt, who told me she’d recently had four nights in Torquay, return coach travel, nightly entertainment, 16 pints of lager, four three-course dinners and the company of people of a pensionable age all for less than a hundred quid. I promptly hung up and booked six – with Pitlochry at the rear.
This is a snippet of the Scottish leg, which ended with yours truly atop the River Tummel, at 11 in the evening, having just seen a Noel Coward play at the splendid Pitlochry Festival Theatre, feeling an inch taller for my travels, and wondering at the amount of light so late in the day.
Day 1/June 4
14:00. We stop for lunch just across the border. I have haggis on a jacket, and a can of Irn-bru. I sit with a pair of ladies from Derby – Mary and Flicker. The latter looks at my lunch as though it were a collection of sins. She knows she’s doing it as well, because she says she’s always telling her grandchildren not to say they don’t like something until they’ve tried it, and now here she is raising her eyebrows at my lunch, having never tried a mouthful of either. ‘Don’t do it, Flicker,’ says Mary. ‘I’ve had both and as the Lord is our shepherd let me be yours – stick to your cheese sandwich.’
19:00. The Pitlochry Hydro Hotel. I’ve been sat with the only other diner under 50. Craig’s in town on business and gives me a quick lap of Scotland over Spanish chicken: Glasgow is music and gigs; Edinburgh – Auld Reekie – is the festival and the castle and Hogmanay; Dundee is the arts and gaming; Aberdeen is oil; Stirling is William Wallace and Robert the Bruce and Bannockburn; Inverness is … ‘Actually, to be honest, I have nae a clue wha’ Inverness is up tae.’
Day 2/June 5
08:00. I study a map of the local area in bed. Carpow is obviously where your car blows up. Powmill must be where they grind down the exploded cars. Killin is where you go if you’ve got a really bad back. Findo Gask is surely a mechanic. Innerwick is strength you didn’t know you had. Dull is the least interesting place on the planet. Loch Drunkie is where you go if you live in Dull. And Loch na Ba is what you’d say if you were trying tae reason with a sheep. All things considered, perhaps the most suggestive region of the UK.
09:00. We take a train to Aviemore. The scenery is pleasant from the off – lots of heathery hills, lots of thistly braes, the odd Munro – but mostly I chat with a Hungarian called Zoltan, who says he’s lived in England for 63 years and of those years the first 60 were the toughest. Zoltan reckons that for some reason people understand him more when he talks English with a Scottish accent – which explains why he sounds like a tipsy, but perfectly intelligible, Alan Hansen.
13:00. On our way back to Pitlochry, our coach driver Malcom says he was on the phone earlier to his pal, who’s been going out with
Mark tells Jenny to stop looking up his kilt. Jenny says he’s not to worry as she’s not got her glasses on
this really tasty bird, but had to dump her when he found various uniforms in her closet. Malcolm asked his pal what the problem was. And his pal replied, ‘Well she obviously can’t hold down a job, can she?’
20:00. The hotel’s maintenance man is the evening’s entertainment. His name is Mark and he’s dressed as a clansman, a Highlander. He picks a lady called Jenny to be his volunteer and says he’s going to dress her in a tartan plaid kilt. Jenny, who must be in her 90s, doesn’t fancy his chances. That’s what her face says. Mark says first of all he’s going to get Jenny to lie on the floor. Jenny really doesn’t fancy his chances. That’s what her – ooh, hang on, I talk too soon, her face tells a lie: Jenny is on the floor. Mark tells Jenny to stop looking up his kilt. Jenny says he’s not to worry as she’s not got her glasses on.
Day3/june 6
09:00. Watching the D-day commemorations on the telly in the lounge, a lady called Monica says that one time during the war their cat refused to go into the air raid shelter with them, and when they came out an hour later the house was in bits and the cat was in the oven, safe and sound. Monica says she’s never doubted the intelligence of animals since.
14:30. We go to Dunkeld, a big village of low, whitewashed buildings situated around a few main streets and a marketplace called The Cross. After a quick look at the cathedral, I go to the butcher’s on Bridge Street hoping for something tasty and local. The butcher is Scottish Indian, or so he says. He also says the chicken curry pie is nice, but I might not want it because it’s not properly Scottish. I suggest that anything made by a Scot in Scotland is Scottish, thinking he might find the idea attractive, but the butcher’s not persuaded. He picks up the pie in question and says it’s about as Scottish as … He looks to his colleague. ‘Wha’s not Scottish?’ he says.
20:00. Tonight’s entertainer is a guy called Ronnie Ross. I sit next to Jenny, the lady who got wrapped up last night. She’s from Bradford and her husband’s been dead 17 years. (Some people reveal their widowhood quickly, as if to explain or excuse their being alone. They needn’t.) Ronnie does a dozen numbers and then sends us off with a classic – ‘We’ll Meet Again’, the old war song. The song suits him. Suits his timbre, if that’s the word. By the end of the song, just about the whole room is singing along, and there’s a few who mean the words all right.
Day 4/June 7
09:45. After a breakfast of square sausage and potato scones, we head south to Blairgowrie – or Berry Toon. Malcolm puts us down by the River Ericht and says we’ve got an hour. Someone asks what we’re meant to do. Malcolm shrugs and says, ‘The world’s your oyster, pet,’ but the woman isn’t convinced. ‘But I don’t like oysters,’ she says.
I walk upstream to Cargill’s Leap, so-called because once upon a time a bloke surnamed Cargill leapt across the river here. He had good reason to. He was a heretical Presbyterian on the run from Bonnie Prince Charlie. An onlooker who observed the leap is thought to have remarked, ‘Not bad for an Elder.’ Following his leap, Cargill managed to evade capture for 16 years before being surprised in a Glasgow betting shop preaching about predestination.
19:00. I have my last supper and then head to the theatre for a bit of Noel Coward. Doing so, I wonder if there will be something deep and hopeful and playful and joyous in Blithe Spirit that will echo the music of these travels; a final, fitting sound, on which to end, on which to start.
23:00. There was no such sound, and no such thing. But there is this bridge, and this river, and all this light so late in the day.
● Ben Aitken is the author of The Gran Tour, published by Icon books, priced £14.99. Out now.