The pub was called The Forth Bridge, so it was only fitting that framed photographs of the old bridge at various stages of her construction should adorn its walls. On one quiet Sunday evening, the pub was invaded by a horde of smiling, spectacle-wearing, camera-clicking Japanese tourists. They didn’t go near the bar, but instead trooped from one photograph to the next, like Catholics doing the Stations of the Cross. The barman watched this performance with mounting anger. Finally, he could hold back no longer. “Aye, you cunts’ll ken aw aboot buildin’ bridges, eh,” he shouted at the visitors. “It’s no’ the fuckin’ Bridge ower the River Kwai, you ken.” One by one, having finished their tour of the photographs, the visitors came up to the bar, smiled inscrutably at the barman, bowed and left the pub.
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A more light-hearted memory this time. It’s early morning in Naples during the summer of 2003. From the bedroom window of our hotel suite high up in the city, we have a clear view across the Bay of Naples to Mount Vesuvius. Dark clouds surround Vesuvius this morning, and an electric storm plays out in the sky above it. It’s like a scene from the Apocalypse. The hotel, the city, the whole of North Italy are without power. Unshowered, but washed the best we can, we eventually head down to the hotel’s restaurant for something to eat. The Head Waiter explains that the chefs are having to cook using candles. They could prepare omelettes for us, but it would take at least an hour, perhaps two. Otherwise, all they had to offer was cold salads. It WAS the Apocalypse!
Blame Christmas time; it brings on the memories. It’s the early hours of New Year’s Day, 2003. I’m sitting at a table on the balcony of our room in a hotel in Athens. Alison is already sleeping in bed. I’m having a last wee drink and a smoke before I join her. We’ve had a good night of food and entertainment at one of the big hotels in the city centre. There were singers and ventriloquists and comedians; the fact that we couldn’t understand a word they said made no difference to our enjoyment. And the maître d' took a shine to us. Told us he loves listening on the radio to the Scottish football scores. A big fan of Forfar Athletic, apparently. Now I’m sitting in the mild night air, drinking, smoking, gazing up at the ancient magnificence of the floodlit and moonlit Acropolis, and contemplating life. The business is doing well. We have a home in Edinburgh’s New Town (a boyhood ambition of mine ever since that posh bitch in Barnton paid me for a day’s hard grafting in her garden with a tin of Sharp’s toffees that had been discarded by one of her sons). And we can afford to roam the world, experiencing magical moments like this one. I’m thinking life couldn’t be any better. But no-one can foretell the future, can they?
What a lovely surprise tonight! I came across my student ID card from 1968/69, the one year I attended University. I thought I had lost it a long time ago. I was half-jaked when the photo was taken. In the matriculation room that day, I was sitting next to a beautiful blonde girl from London. We seemed to be the only adults in amongst all the noisy kids in the place, so we got talking and decided to go for a drink and come back later. I took her to the Kenilworth in Rose Street, which I hadn’t been in before, but it was entertaining watching the prossies proposition all the old drunks. Anyway, it turns out she was engaged to a guy, a rugby player, who was already a student at Edinburgh University. After she went off to meet him, I had a few more pints elsewhere before returning for my photo. Never saw her again. Sad.
Alison took this photo one night at the Scuola Grande dei Carmini in Venice. When we bought tickets earlier that day for the performance there of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, we were advised to come half-an-hour before it was due to start so that we would have time to view a renowned Tiepolo ceiling in an adjoining room. Like everyone else who arrived early, we chose our seats, placed our programmes on the seats to “reserve” them and then went up a staircase to see the ceiling. We had come across a few Tiepolo ceilings before then, but this one was truly magnificent. Anyway, when we returned to our seats we found that they had been taken by a middle-aged English couple and our programmes discarded on the floor. The man was tall and white-haired. The woman resembled Hyacinth Bouquet in voice and mannerisms, as well as in appearance. Very politely, we explained the business of the Tiepolo and the programmes. “How ridiculous,” Hyacinth exclaimed when we had finished. “Reserving seats, indeed. Who do you think you are?” “Yes, totally ridiculous,” her husband joined in. But we persisted, and the Bouquets moved to vacant seats further along the row. “I’m going to see what all the fuss is about,” we heard Hyacinth say to her husband moments before the performance began. And off she went. Poor Mr “Totally ridiculous” Bouquet. He spent an uncomfortable hour or so watching the performance on his own. And poor old obnoxious Hyacinth. She stood at the foot of the staircase all that time, prevented by a steward from crossing the floor to join her husband during the whole of the performance. Oh, how we fucking laughed!
On BBC Four last night, there was a programme celebrating the life of Concorde. It involved a bunch of boffins, celebrities and other talking heads in a sort of nostalgia-fest. And of course it brought back memories of my and Alison’s one and only trip on that plane. It was part of a once in a lifetime package holiday – a cruise on the QE2 from Edinburgh to New York, a stay at the Waldorf Astoria, and a flight back to Scotland on Concorde. After some wee refreshments in the Concorde lounge at JFK Airport, we, together with a busload of fellow-Scots, were escorted onto the plane. We were allocated seats 2A and 2B. In front of us in seats 1A and 1B were a big fella and his wife. And in front of them (as in the photo) was a panel showing the speed (mach) and height at which we were flying. Drinking champagne and eating caviar while we travelled noiselessly faster than a bullet. It was all very exciting. The experience of a lifetime. We couldn’t take our eyes off the machmeter as it continued to climb up to the speed of light and beyond. Nor could we take our eyes off the pair of giant feet, clad in thick, sweaty, woollen socks, as they climbed up alongside the machmeter. Yup, the big fella in front had decided to take off his shoes and stretch his legs up the cabin wall. We didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. How does that saying go again? You can take the Teuchter out of Scotland, but you cannae–
It’s Sunday, so it must be those auld photies again. This time we’re back in the mid-Eighties. Alison and I are on our epic hitchhiking trip across the Highlands. That morning, we had taken the postbus from Laggan to Spean Bridge, where we stopped for a coffee before resuming our journey to Kyle of Lochalsh and over the sea to Skye. (That’s right, just like in Outlander.) It rained pretty much incessantly after we set off, but as you can see from the photo there were horses to distract us on the way. Shortly after the photo was taken, a farmer offered us a lift.
“Noo, whaur are ye headin’?” he asked once we and our rucksacks had squeezed into the front of his van. “We’re making our way to Kyle of Lochalsh,” I answered, “so if you could drop us off anywhere in that direction, that would be brilliant.” “Aye, weel, but that’ll present a problem,” he said with a wry grin. “Seein’ as ye’ve been walkin’ in the opposite direction. The best I can dae is let you aff at Kingussie.” It was the signpost on the bridge at Spean Bridge that had confused us. Instead of taking the road leading west and then north, we took the one going east, back the way we had come. But it didn’t matter. The farmer gave us a history lesson on the way to Kingussie, pointing out the places where Bonnie Prince Charlie had hidden after Culloden. And it was Friday night at the hotel in Kingussie, where a good time was had by all! The next day we set off for Culloden Moor. I resolved today, thunderstorms or no thunderstorms, to hand some of Alison’s stuff into one of the town’s charity shops. Stuff that I had stowed away in a cupboard two years ago. When I walked into the shop, the lady behind the counter looked up from what she was doing.
“I have some stuff–” I began. “Have ye gote Gift Aid?” she shouted. “Aye, I–” “D’ye ken yer postcode?” she shouted again. “Aye, it’s–” “Jist fill this in,” she ordered, handing me a label. I hesitated. “D’ye want me tae fill it in fur ye?” Jesus, I thought, I know I’m a pensioner, but do I look fucking senile? “No, no, no,” I said and proceeded to print my name and postcode on the label. After I handed the label back to her, I lifted up the two bags I had come in with. “And the stuff?” I asked. “Och, ye’ve gote two bags,” she tutted and began filling in a second label. “Jist pit the bags ower there by the radiator,” she continued without lifting her head. By the time I did that, she was serving the family who had been waiting behind me at the counter. Before I went into the shop, I had rehearsed what I was going to say. “I have some stuff here that belonged to my late wife. There’s a large mirrored jewellery box in the big bag. And in the little one there are some smaller jewellery boxes, together with some pieces of jewellery that people might like.” But the lady was loud (it’s a Crieff thing) and busy and had no time to chat. She was just doing her job, I suppose. And I’m glad about that, because otherwise I’m sure I would have choked up. Sometimes a lack of empathy can help. |
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