The Burrymen War
The Burrymen War is Brendan Gisby's latest novel in progress. As a taster, the preface to the novel is reproduced below, together with some extracts from the opening chapters.
~ Preface ~
No-one knows for sure when or why the Burryman ceremony in South Queensferry began, although many say it celebrates the granting to the town of Royal Burgh status by James VI in 1588. This account of it was penned by the writer, W. W. Fyffe, in 1865:
 | “On the day preceding the Queensferry Fair, the Burry Man who requires to be either a stout man or robust lad, as weakly persons, like the man in complete steel who annually sacrifices his life to the Lord Mayors Show in London, have been known to faint under the heat and fatigue of the dressing, is indued in his flannels; face, arms, and legs, body all being covered, so as nearly to resemble a man in chain amour, from the adhesion of the burrs; and the head, as well as the tops of the staves grasped with extended arms, being beautifully dressed with flowers; whilst the victim, thus accoutered, is led from door to door by two attendants who likewise assist in holding up his arms by grasping the staves.
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At every door in succession, a shout is raised, and the inhabitants, severally come forth, bestow there kindly greetings and donatives of money on the Burry Man who in this way collects, we believe, considerable sums of money to be eventually divided and spent at the Fair by the youth associated in this exploit.”
Whatever its origins, the ceremony was held every year for hundreds of years until it was suspended by the authorities after the gruesome and mysterious death of a participant in the 1990 ceremony. The following is the true story of the events surrounding that death.
~ From Chapter One ~
Lenny drained his pint. He looked pensive, as if he was choosing his words carefully.
“That Burryman thing has always perplexed me, Dan,” he said at length. “It started off as a good laugh, a way of picking up a few bucks and getting oor ain back, but it turned into tribal fucking warfare. For as long as I live, I’ll never be able to fathom why.”
“That Burryman thing has always perplexed me, Dan,” he said at length. “It started off as a good laugh, a way of picking up a few bucks and getting oor ain back, but it turned into tribal fucking warfare. For as long as I live, I’ll never be able to fathom why.”
~ From Chapter Two ~
Now, you would never have dared say this to their faces, but Beastie and Peanuts were like an old, married couple – two pals who had aged together, were never out of each other’s sight and basically always came in a pair. They were ex-bikers, by which I mean real, hard-as-fuck ex-Hell’s Angels bikers, with the scars from old stab wounds to prove it. Both of them were well into their forties then. They still wore their hair and their beards long, but they had grown as broad as they were tall, so, like their bikes, their leather jackets with the death head logo on the back had been put into retirement years ago. Don’t get me wrong, mind: as far as I was concerned, all the girth on them, all the weight they carried, was pure fucking muscle. Those guys were two grizzly bears you did not want to tangle with.
~ From Chapter Three ~
The gents hadn’t changed either. There was the same ancient urinal with room for only two people to stand and the same stink of stale piss mixed with disinfectant coming from it. There was the same dirty sink to the side of the urinal and beyond that the same shithouse cubicle, probably still with its door broken. That night, when the battle was raging and we were all punching and kicking and screaming at each other, Mad Mick Flowers had finished off Bluto in there; cracked his head off the urinal a few times, apparently, and left him a vegetable.
