Complete New Tales of Para Handy (51 page)

It was early on a scorching August afternoon: the capital of Bute was already overwhelmed with visitors but their number was in process of being substantially augmented by the crowds who could be seen streaming ashore from the
Iona
, calling on her way to Tarbert and Ardrishaig, having left the Broomielaw at noon on the afternoon run which supplemented the
Columba
's morning service on the route during the peak season.

“You would wonder where they are aal going to stay,” remarked the Captain, watching as fathers struggled down the gangplank with the family's tin trunks and hat boxes while elsewhere on the pier anxious mothers desperately waved a rolled-up umbrella (only the very foolish ever came to Bute without one) to try to catch the attention of an unengaged shore porter with an empty handcart who could wheel the luggage along the esplanade to their chosen hotel.

“There iss times when I think that the island will chust up and sink under the sheer weight o' the numbers. If there iss ony hooseholds in the toon that iss not sleepin' in their beck yerds whiles the hoose is earning coin from towerists packed in hauf-a-dozen to the room, then they must be gey few and far between.”

“What do you and Mrs Macfarlane do yourselves when it comes to holidays, Captain?” I enquired, curious: “presumably you have seen enough of the West Coast resorts all the other 50 weeks of the year, and choose something very different?”

“Mery and I very rarely go awa' at aal,” Para Handy said. “I am no' mich of a traiveller, other than at my work. And if I can get the twa weeks o' the Fair off, then we ha'e Gleska almost to oorselves. Half the city hass gone doon the watter somewhere and the toon iss deserted.

“You have no idea how peaceful it iss in the Botanic Gairdens, or Gleska Green, or Kelvingrove, when there iss no crowds. And it iss the same wi' the shops, and the tea-rooms, and the picture palaces and aal the rest. There iss no crowds to fight your way through, and the shopkeepers and the rest is most obleeging, they're dam' gled to see ony customers at aal when the maist of their regular tred iss spending their money on sticks o' rock and Eyetalian ices somewhere aboot Innellan or Saltcoats.

“Certainly Gleska's no' a place you'd think to tak' your holidays in ony ither time o' the year but I assure you, in the second hauf of July, you could go a lot further and do a lot worse.”

“An interesting concept, Captain,” I said: “I confess I have never thought of it that way. In any case, I admit that I enjoy a change of scenery and surroundings, myself.”

“Oh, we are not total stay-at-homes,” said Para Handy. “We have been doon to England, we stayed at Bleckpool for a week wan year. It iss a strange toon, full o' the English, and the maist of their hooses is built oot o' brick wi' nae harling, it looks like a hauf-feenished building-site.

“We went doon by train frae Gleska, and when we got there we took a horse-cab to the hoose we wass booked into, for it wass a fair step oot of the toon centre.

“Aal the way through the toon Mery kept pointin' oot the number o' temperance hooses to be seen, they wass clustered at every street corner. I'd noticed it myself, and I wass getting a bit anxious aboot it, I can tell you.

“But Mery wass delighted, and she remarked to the cabdriver that Bleckpool must be wan o' the most abstentious holiday-resorts in the country, and the chentlemen that owned the temperance hotels deserved to be congratulated for their convictions.

“ ‘It's not chust exactly what you're thinking, Ma'am,' said the cabbie: ‘though in one sense
convictions
is the right word to be using.

“ ‘You see, of aal the dry hooses you see, aboot hauf of them
wants
a licence but cannae get it frae the magustrates because o' the reputation they have: and the other hauf
used
to have a licence — but lost it for the way they wass running the hooses, chust drinking shebeens they wass, wi' constant fighting and noise and broken glesses and the polis aye being called by the neighbours, and clamjamfreys and shenanigans every night.'

“That raither changed Mery's opeenion aboot Bleckpool and she wass gled to get oot of it efter the week — though I managed to find some cheery company roond aboot the pier. But wild horses woudna drag Mery beck!”

The Captain shrugged. “I must admut that I am not chust exectly comfortable staying in a hotel myself.

“Mony of the big wans are so highly-polished and stiff-necked that you are feart to sit on the chairs or waalk on the flairs in case there iss an extra cherge on the account, and the staff are aal so high-falutin' that you are feart to ask them for onything and, when you do, their accents is that posh you could cut them wi' a knife and you canna understand wan single word they are saying.

“And the smaal wans that I have been unlucky enough to stay in have usually been run by a man wi' a problem wi' drink and a wife that canna cook, so you get short-measure at the bar and short-shrift in the dining-room.

“The staff is either ower 80 and that wandered and trauchled that the guests think
they
should be serving
them
raither than the ither way roond: or else they're laddies of aboot 12 years wi' weel-scrubbed faces and a habit o' picking their teeth wi' a matchstick when they think nobody's looking.

“I mind fine wan time a few years back, before the
Vital Spark
wass built, I wass working for a man that owned two or three boats that sailed oot o' Girvan. And did wan o' them no strand herself — or more accurately, did the man that wass supposed to be in cherge of her no' strand her, and him doon below in the fo'c'sle with aal the rest o' the shup's company and enchoying a refreshment when she ran agroond — on a sand bar in the Soond o' Raasay, on her way to Portree from Kyle.

“McTavish, him that owned the boat, secked the entire crew the meenit he got the report of it. I wass on my leave break at the time myself. This wass long afore I got merried, of course, and I wass chust perambulating aboot Gleska and having a gless noo and then in wan o' the Hieland public hooses aboot the toon.

“McTavish caaled me back from my leave and sent me up wi' an engineer and a hand to bring the shup back doon to Girvan. I can tell you, I was not at aal happy aboot the chob. We had to get her refloated first, she wass still on the sand: and then we had to hope the propellor wassna damaged: and aal the time we would be aware of the owner waatching efferything that wass going on, through his agent in Portree.

“If things didna work oot then heaven help us, for he wass a short-fused man withoot an ounce of Chrustian charity in him, and he'd secked mair men for less reason than a Tarbert trawlerman's had sair heids on a Sabbath morning.

“We went up by train to Mallaig, and got there late afternoon. There wass only two boats a week to Portree, wan sailing the morn's morning — which iss why he'd sent us up that day — wi' the next no' due till fower days later.

“Lord help us if we missed that boat! And she sailed at half-past five in the morning! There wass a kind of a night-clerk in the Hotel, a man of 75 if he wass a day, very shaky on his feet and as deaf as a post.

“We made sure we wass early to bed, I can tell you. We had a room on the furst floor o' the Hotel wi' three beds in it, at the head of the stairs from the main haall.

“While the other two went up to make their ablutions, I went in search of this night-clerk.

“I found him cleaning the boots o' the commaircial chentlemen who wass the Hotel's only ither patrons, in a basement room wi' no light but wan solitary candle.

“ ‘We've to get the Skye steamer at half-past-five', I bellowed in his ear, ‘and we daurna miss it! Ye'll need to mind to gi'e us a caall at half-past-four. Room three at the heid of the stair.'

“ ‘Aal right,' says he, ‘that's no bother. Room three, heid of the stair, half-past-four for the half-past-five steamer — and ye dinna need to shout, I'm no deaf!'

“We found out later that, come the morning, he had forgotten which room wass to be knocked for the steamer, and he chust went to the tap o' the hoose — room 33 — and worked his way doon. You can imachine the abuse he got alang the way!

“But it took him a long time to work his way doon for the ither chentlemen wass ill to rouse, them no' expecting the caall in the furst place, and verra displeased indeed when they were given it.

“When he finally knocked on the door of room three it wass too late.

“I woke up wi' this voice shouting through the keyhole: ‘Are you the chentlemen that wants the caall for the early boat?'

“ ‘Yes,' I yelled back. ‘Thanks! we'll be down for our breakfast in a jiffy.'

“ ‘Och, ye needna fash yersel's', he shouts: ‘tak' your time, you've plenty of it. It's six o'clock and she's well on her way to Kyle by noo. She left hauf an hoor ago. There wass no need to waken you at aal, I chust did it because you asked me to.'

“So,” concluded Para Handy, “that wass wan ‘holiday' that cost me my chob, for MacTavish brought in a crew from Inverness and we were secked. I should chust have stayed in Gleska and taken my leave.”

With an imperious blast on her powerful steam whistle the
Iona
announced her intention of departing and the admiring flotilla of small yachts and rowing boats which had been gathered around her gleaming black hull like pilot fish round a whale scattered hastily as the steamer's bow and stern ropes were cast loose from the pier bollards and the paddle-blades began to turn.

At that moment came an anguished feminine cry of “Wait, wait for us, please: please wait!”

Turning, the Captain and I saw a strange little cavalcade come hurrying from the esplanade, along the connecting roadway to the pierhead.

In the van was a woman of perhaps 40 years, gesticulating quite frantically with an umbrella. Hers were the shouts.

Behind her, making the best speed he could, was one of the town's shore-porters with his barrow. On it lay the lady's luggage — and one other accoutrement: the lady's husband. Fast asleep and with a contented smile on his face, his rosy cheeks suggested how that contentment had been achieved, and why the couple were in grave danger of missing the steamer.

The
Iona
's Captain, on the wing of the bridge, took the scene in at a glance — and gently nudged his vessel back towards the quay for the minute necessary for the lady and her luggage to be gallantly assisted aboard across the paddle-box by two of the ship's crew: and for the husband to be less ceremoniously taken in a fireman's lift and dropped onto a convenient bench.

Para Handy sighed.

“There is no justice, is there? We went sober to our beds and lost our chobs. That chentleman probably neffer went to his at aal last night and not only did he catch his ship, it wass his wife that he has to thank for that.

“If that had been Mery and me, I doot the mustress would have gone aboard and left me at Ro'say pier wi' a label roond my neck printed, ‘
Not wanted on Voyage
'.

“And you know, she would have been quite right!”

F
ACTNOTE

Blackpool has been a favourite holiday destination for generations of lowland Scots and its ‘Golden Mile' with its end-of-the-pier-shows, the tower, the ballroom, the funfair, have entertained millions and still attract the summer hordes at the end of this century. I wish the Clyde resorts had been as fortunate in fine-tuning and marketing their appeal for them we might still have had steamer fleets!

Of all the famous Clyde names, only that of the veteran
Iona
comes close to eclipsing the legendary
Columba
.

She was the third steamer of that name to be built for the Hutcheson fleet at the Govan yard of J & G Thomson in a space of just nine years!

The first
Iona
, launched in 1855, put in just seven seasons on the Clyde when her speed and manoeuvrability were noticed and she was bought by the American Confederate States for service as a blockade-runner in the Civil War. Ignominiously, however, she never got past the Tail o' the Bank, being run down by the steamship
Chanticleer
off Greenock when she was running without lights. As soon as she had been sold to the Americans a second
Iona
had been ordered from Thomsons yard, but this one never even entered service before she was snapped up by agents of the Confederacy. She got a little further on her voyage to America than her predecessor, though not much: she foundered off the island of Lundy in a Bristol Channel storm.