Atomic Crofter

Listening to: Verkhovyn by The Wedding Present; Don’t fuck around with love by The Blenders; Bride and groom boogie woogie by Tiny Grimes.

In the lead up to my own wedding I discovered just why they can be so stressful. It had all been plain sailing, lulling me into a false sense of security, but all that was to change. Family got involved and all of a sudden, wife to be, turned into Chirpy the Hellbeast. However, and it was a quite big however, she got her revenge by sabotaging the meal and reception. She and father of wife to be, went to a vineyard to order wine for the pre-meal drink. The quantity was suggested to her, but an awareness of the presence of guests from that terrible parish of Slackbuie led her to think a larger quantity may be required, and ordered a barrel amounting to a lire and a half per man woman and child. Obviously, going to the vineyard suggests we were not in Slackbuie, where the wine was more likely to have been of the elderflower or potato variety. The inevitable happened, and many of the guests never saw the meal, and much time was spent searching for the corpses of the missing.

I have digressed right for the start this time though, I meant to tell you about a spectacular wedding disaster that we in fact provided the music for. We had been booked by the bride, who was irritated when we confirmed it was definitely ceilidh band she was looking for. The wedding was after all in the lowlands, and any sort of degeneracy is to be expected there.

The atmosphere was a little tense to put it mildly, so we kicked off with a Gay Gordons, a dance so simple that alcoholics, a mman with a wooden leg and all of the school children of Slackbuie could can do it. Alas, it proved to be something of a false start. After a few dances, the mother of the bride approached us to ask if we really had to play all that Scottish shite? Not unreasonably we pointed out that they had in fact booked a ceilidh band, and it was a reasonable assumption therefore that the ‘shite’ was what they had wanted. She then demanded “can you not play some Latin music”. The very reasonable response was words to the effect of how often do you see Ricky fucking Martin with pipers in his band? She, being unreasonable did not see her own faux pas, and announced that we had ruined the wedding.

Now because we could play a couple of Latin things, after playing at the wedding of a Cuban exile to a good island boy from Lewis, and we really ended up doing covers and watching the hands f the clock move extremely slowly. The evening was lit up for a while when the police arrived and cuffed two uncles on the dance floor and led them out, followed a few minutes later by a screaming and pushing between the bride, groom, best man and bridesmaid. Now in Slackbuie, we always say that you can always tell the difference between a Slackbuie wedding and a funeral, as the main character may still be standing at the end of the wedding. That may not bee quite the case for this wedding. The evening started low and deterioratedrapidly, when the bride delivered a perfect right hook to the jaw of the bridesmaid and she dropped like a dead thing, or, like a bridesmaid hooked by the bride. The police and ambulance both arrived this time, the bridesmaid went to hospital, the bride and groom spent their first night of wedded bliss in the cells. As we left, after checking we had been paid, it was with an immense satisfaction we were able to ask mother of bride if she still thought WE has spoiled the day. No sense of humour that woman.

Now that is a lowland wedding for you. On a sojourn in Ireland we had booked into a hotel for the night on our travels and learned that weddings there are much more like our own. As I sat in the bar contemplating the meaning of life and what time I would have to get up in the morning, when the bride ran into the bar shrieking, with a shirtless man chasing after her shouting, “The baby is mine”. He was the pursued by a man I assumed was the groom and some of his pals. The fight broke out, and the barman jumped out from behind the bar to settle them down I assumed. He in fact had come to tell them the police were on their way, but their was a small car park round the back where they could fight it out and the police would not be able to see them. The combatants proceeded to tuck shirts in and in an orderly fashion, head to the car park to finish their battle royale.

Made me feel right at home in Ireland!

Listening to: Hap-hap-happy Heart by Lucia Pamela; The Devil’s Dance Floor by Steve Lieberman, The Gangsta Rabbi and Let’s Go Party by K. Lewis

It’s been a while. Everything has been so weird for the last while, and most of the news has been bad, that I just never quite got round to writing the blog. But..all that has changed. The Anchor opened again, and the streets, ditches and fields are filled with the happy sounds of laughter and throwing up. A sense of normality returns.

It’s not that everyone here is an alcoholic, far from it, as drinking is purely about the socialising, obviously. At a Burns supper once, both father of Willox Dixon and I were playing. I drew the short straw and had to pipe in the Haggis and he was to do the address. The chef, standing with the the freshly squeezed haggis on a tray, suddenly asked, “What is in the glass for the toast? I don’t drink”.

I went through to check, and told my father, “He doesn’t drink.”

A look of total confusion crossed his face, “Doesn’t drink?”

“No, the chef doesn’t drink, what’s in the glass?”

“No problem, I can just put wine in instead of whisky.”

He was even more perplexed to discover that some people consider wine to be an alcoholic drink.

Now I can certainly assure you that wine is alcoholic. On a visit to Switzerland I was invited to join friends for a wine tasting at a vineyard in a neighbouring village. Being something of an expert on this – a tiny glass, “Ah, I am getting hints of pencil shavings” and then you buy some wine – I agreed.

We arrived and Georgie answered the door of the Caveau. Dear God, he was 106 if he was a day, with a face as purple as elderberry. He led us in, and opened the first bottle. We tasted it, then again, and a little more and the empty bottle was dumped. As we progressed, we learned a wide range of fascinating facts – you can’t get drunk at altitude and how long you can keep a bottle for is not a question he has an answer for.

“This wine is called Symphony Rouge, because, well I can’t remember, but you’ll like it!”

After four or five hours solid ‘tasting’, it was time to see the bottling plant and try the various types of schnapps he made. The bottling was interesting, label on straight, label on squint – goes to Georgie, label upside down – Georgie upside down in the plant. Georgie’s son was the black sheep of the family, he had run off to join the opera and his assistant, went to work in a quarry as he thought it would be safer. Georgie is from tough stock though. Poor guy does wine tasting for 12 hours a day, so he doesn’t get to drink for pleasure until after 9pm. Worse still, his mother – yes his mother – gets to drink for pleasure much earlier. Sadly we never got the pleasure of meeting her. Perhaps the life support machine power lead was too short.

The final thing I did learn that day, was there are two brass bands in the village, affiliated to two different political parties. Each year they have a play off at the vineyard, and each year they fish musicians and instruments out the river for days afterwards.

I have digressed again, but drinking too much is not a new phenomenon here. A copy of the Slackbuie Post and Herald (incorporating Ploughman’s Weekly), from 1904 carries the headline ‘Slackbuie Drunks’.

A correspondent to the Herald wrote, “Can nothing be done to stem the tide of drunkenness in the usually delightful district of Slackbuie? The amount of drunk navvies, etc, stumbling and lying about the roads has become not only a nuisance to residenters, but a danger to any person driving, cycling, or motoring. One is never sure when negotiating a turn in the road, but that a drunk man may be lying about, and if he should be rund down the question arises – Who is responsible? Recently this beautiful district of ours has been turned into a pandemonium.”

There was also an article complaining that the head teacher was being paid too much – One of the old lairds of Colqualzie was so noted for kindness to his horse, that one of his friends made the remark that if the transmigration of souls was true, he would like to be transmigrated into a Colqualzie horse. We suspect that the rate payers would rather be transmigrated into a head teacher under the Slackbuie School Board, and be paid the prodigious sum of £280 per year – so really nothing much changes.

Listening to: Checking out the Checkout Girl by Wazmo Nariz; Supermarket by Nuclear Rabbit and Eat Some Vegetables by Brian Shell.

It’s funny how this lock-down impacts people differently and there are people who for all sorts of reasons are really struggling. I certainly recognise that I am lucky, and I can honestly say that I in no way miss being limited in my options for shopping or going to the supermarket. A ceilidh on your own is fine if you are good company. I suppose if anything it would eating out…

As a child, one of the folk we visited was old Mrs Mack in Kinlochleven. She wasn’t as mobile as she used to be and the kitchen was really tiny. There was a cooker on one side and a basin on the other and the table was out the door into the next room. Mrs Mack would sit on her stool between the basin and the cooker, and when food was ready, she passed it out on a stick. This shepherd’s cromag approach has proven to be a valuable lesson in social distancing.

This approach would also have been handy when on holiday we visited the delightful Cafe Des Amies, a quaint old fashioned cafe bar in an old part of the town of ………. The cafe was a welcoming brown colour. A large window proclaimed the name of the cafe, with big brown curtains ensuring that you couldn’t see in. It had that 1940 retro chic, worn out linoleum and nicotine brown walls and ceiling. I suspect there had been no changes since about, well, about 1940. Three customers sat individually at tables, and we sat at another table trying to see if the menu was actually a menu or part of the 1940 decor. The daily special certainly seemed to be from before the end of rationing.

At that point, Methuselah’s mother came out on her zimmer frame with a tray on it carrying a pot of fondue. “Now this is going to be interesting” thought I. She parked the zimmer and leaning on the wall edged her way round to one of the tables and put the fondue set down. She edged her way back and 15 minutes later appeared with some bread and prceeded to work her way around the wall again. I couldn’t bring myself to order food as the poor old trout was struggling so badly, so we just ordered a couple of drinks.

This was obviously the final straw, as Gagool the Crone sat herself down and proceeded to burp and fart till she deflated across the table.

We were not sure of the cost of the drinks or whether the man at the bar was really meant to be helping himself to drinks, when a younger woman appeared with an apron. We asked for the bill, and she cheerily replied “I go now! I go la la la” picked up up her jacket, or someone’s jacket, and walked out. Eventually we put some money on the bar, washed our own glasses and left. To this day though, I have never settled whether she was going to choir practice, or whether this was some secret underground code.

Listening to Punchey Wunchey Wickey Wackey Woo by Hasil Adkins and Been Here and Gone by Elmo Williams and Hezekiah Early.

I was going to write about the wedding of niece of Willox Dixon, which took place prior to the Covid lockdown, and I will later, but seeing a selection of relatives there caused me to start thinking about families in general. Now, unfortunately, other than the fact that my family are perhaps a little eccentric at times, I don’t hate them or anything. It is a bit disappointing as it limits my colourful back story a bit – although, Batman didn’t hate his parents, but I suppose, they got shot before he got a chance to grow up and hate them.

I have mentioned the viking ancestors in a past blog, but there are more recent family members who are also worthy of a mention. Auntie Jeannie for example, she swears like … a parrot I know called Lorenza, which is probably the most ill tempered creature I have ever come across, but back to Jeannie. She uses swears I have never even heard before and summer or winter she always wears the same overcoat, tied round the middle with orange baler twine. Even on the hottest days she wears the overcoat, because, “whit keeps the cauld oot, keeps the hot oot”. It is claimed that when Jeannie bought her flat, she wheeled the cash up to the solicitors in a pram. That may be apocryphal, but no-one is likely to question her about it.

On the subject of swearing, I just learned that swearing generally draws from a pool of 10 expressions and occurs at a rate of about 0.5 percent of one’s daily word output…While swearing crosses socioeconomic statuses and age ranges and persists across the lifespan, it is more common among adolescents and more frequent among men. Inappropriate swearing can be observed in frontal lobe damage, Tourette’s disorder, and aphasia. As I often say, the quest for knowledge is eternal.

I have digressed a little. At the wedding I got speaking to a great uncle who has also been tracing the family tree. As we stood at the bar, he went into his wallet, and I asked for a whisky. He pulled a newspaper cutting from the wallet as the barman looked at me for cash. The cutting proved to be gold though. So good I didn’t even mind paying for my own dram.

He had spotted in the local paper a reprinted article from February 1928, referring to my great aunt. The article was entitled, ‘Highland spirit enough to give robber a run for his money’. So picture the scene, it is late evening, the night is wet and windy, the slates rattle on the cottage roof as she returns home. Completely unaware of dark figure hiding in the hallway, the moon glinting evilly off the dirty great iron shovel in his hand, she fumbles with key, then pushes back the door and throws herself into the warmth and security of the cottage, and WHACK! A robber proceeds to batter her about the head with the shovel. So vicious was this attack, that blood was sprayed around all the walls of the hallway.

But…Janet was a Highlander by God, and no iron shovel was going to stop her relaxing at home. She picked up a lamp and threw it at the man and they fought through the cottage. She rugby tackled the burly former soldier, bringing him crashing to the ground, along with the Welsh dresser of china, and wrestled with him. It was only when her head was badly cut by the broken lamp, that the fight stopped.

The robber, an army deserter, whilst quite happy to batter her over the head with a shovel, took fright on seeing how much blood there was from the cut – and after all, we know that head wounds do bleed a lot – and worried that she was going to die. He cleaned her and bandaged her head, and sat with her till he was sure she was ok. He then stole a suit and legged it. Janet raised the hue and cry, and the robber was quickly discovered and arrested. It appears there is a reason that making your getaway doesn’t normally involve going to the pub.

Now that is some woman! It was in the paper…must be true.

Listening to: Get your paper by Eddie Fisher and Cows with guns by Dana Lyon. Ok, so Cows with guns is not directly about the news, but it would make the news.

I used to love our local paper. I don’t call it a newspaper, because if you have articles on what the weather was like last week then I am not sure it truly counts as news. It did make for a nice gentle read though. I mean, would you have known that the leek ‘Scotland’ is  hairy and shortshanked, and overwinters well.

Like many other things though, the paper has changed, and now focuses on local scandal and gossip. The up and the down side of living in a small place is that everyone knows what everyone else is doing, so you only really need the paper to find out who got caught

The latest of my neighbours to have a run in with the law, is John-Murdo. For centuries it has been traditional to make your own black pudding (marag dubh), which involves the slaughtering and draining the blood of a sheep or some kind of livestock. I am no expert on the subject, but I gather there is fierce fighting over the ingredients involved. A blogger at The Croft argues that the best marag dubh is to be found on Lewis, and: The two heavyweight contenders on the island are Stornoway butchers Charles MacLeod a.k.a. Charley Barley (on account of his be-sheafed business logo) of Matheson Road and W.J. MacDonald’s a.k.a. Willie John’s on Francis Street with the latter laying claim to be “The original and best” having concocted the bloody things since 1931. Charley Barley’s 50 year old recipe, however, doesn’t give up that easily and claims “Only black pudding made in our Stornoway premises to our award winning recipe can rightfully claim to be Stornoway Black Pudding”.

Listening to Plateful of sgadan by Peat and Diesel

I am absolutely sure that I read somewhere that Marag dubh is a superfood – so its like eating pomegranite or something. How can you argue when you get headlines like this ‘marag dubh saves lives‘. You just can’t argue with facts.

But where does John -Murdo fit in to this? Well, John-Murdo is from the west coast, and there are still some people who are not strictly adhering to the new rules on slaughtering livestock. John-Murdo, then, had two large buckets of blood for the marag dubh as a gift from his mother. He very carefully put the buckets in the boot of his car along with with various bits of equipment involved in the whole process.

Driving very carefully, he turned the nose of the car back in the direction of Slackbuie, and set off for home. Spotting the police car on his tail, he made sure he indicated and stuck to the speed limit, suspicious actions if ever there was, and inevitably the blue lights came on behind him, and he was pulled over.

“Do you know why we pulled you over?” the police man asked as he led John-Murdo to the back of the car. As any normal man would, John-Murdo began to sweat a bit, wondering how they knew about the contents of his boot.

As the policeman pointed to his faulty tail light, the boot slowly started to swing open, revealing in all its glory, two buckets of blood, blood smeared across the car and a bloody knife. John-Murdo, not being the coolest under pressure realised that the slaughter ban was an issue, thought fast, and shouted “It’s my mother’s!”.

Whether the police thought the blood belonged to his mother or whether it was actually her blood, we won’t know till next Friday when the court case appears in the local paper.

it’s not the Loch Ness Monster that washed up on Balmedie Beach!

Listening to: Yippi-Yippi-Ye-Ow by the De Zurik Sisters – the mystery here, was this this really a request? Run to the Hills by Tanya Tagaq and Damian Abraham.

The weather here has been really grim. Slackbuie is a sort of micro-climate, with microscopic amounts of sunshine at times, and this time doesn’t even have that. On crisp, clear days, you can see the mountains over Loch Ness from here, a broken line heading towards the big dome that is Meall Fuar-Mhonaidh. I can’t claim that it is an enormous mountain, but listen, 545m ascent and the name means Hill of the Cold Slopes, so this is definitely a climb done in the spirit of the great adventurers. It is Graham – ok? Everyone knows over 3000 feet is a Munro, a Corbett is over 2,500 feet, but a Graham, well it’s a bit smaller. Inside every Slackbuiean beats the heart of a Highlander, and we all know we can run up a mountain and gralloch a deer for breakfast at the top. I have climbed it, Meall Fuar-Mhonaidh, without the aid of oxygen. With blurry vision and sweating like Trump’s speech writer, I crawled up the last few feet and summited! I was immediately hailed by a group of pensioners, pretty much complete with zimmer frames who were all eating their sandwiches at the top. I couldn’t even reply for wheezing and spent the next hour looking for a road with a bus parked on it somewhere near the top.

Now, Loch Ness has been the site of many great mysteries – what exactly is the monster? Did St Columba really bring someone back from the dead on the banks of the loch? What happened when Aleister Crowley lived in Boleskine House? Was anyone ever cured by the traditional remedy for pneumonia – a dunking in the loch? How in the name of God, did a bunch of geriatrics get to the top without even breaking sweat?

The next great mystery of the loch though, has to be why I ever thought trying sailing first time was something you should do on Loch Ness. My pal Iain and I decided we would try sailing. Got a sailing dinghy, read the book – front, back, water – and a life on the briny was calling us old seadogs.

Loch Ness is renowned for the fact that the mountains funnel the winds from the west, and cause dirty great rollers to thunder up the loch. Perhaps it was a little too windy and rough for a first time out in the sailing dinghy, (christened Flapdoodle) but remember, I mentioned in a previous post, I have the blood of Vikings flowing in my veins! The boat set off for the centre of the loch at quite a speed, actually a terrifying speed. I am not sure exactly what speed a bat out of hell goes at, but I m pretty sure we left one for dead, as we clung to the boat for dear life, praying that it was adrenalin that was flowing down my leg.

We got to the middle of the loch and decided to turn. I had read in the book that you shout “Lee Ho” as the swinging thing attached to the mast, swings across. I shouted “Lee Ho” with the best of them, and got a mouthful of peaty water for my troubles as the boat capsized. There is something slightly disconcerting about water so cold you can barely breathe and enough below your feet to submerge skyscrapers. Added to this, the Willox Dixon family are not renowned swimmers. As my wise mother points out, “Only people that go in water can drown”.

From the other side of the boat, a voice shouted about the fact that at that time of year 20 minutes in the water means you don’t need to be rescued. You can always rely on Iain to find the silver lining. Now in the book, it tells you that if the boat capsizes, you haul yourself up on the hull, grab the dagger board and lean back to right the boat. “So what does it say when the fucking dagger board has fallen out and sunk?” was Iain’s snappy reply.

A tourist cruiser came towards us, and we cheered “We are saved!”, till a voice shouted, “We don’t know what to do” and the tourists sailed on their merry way. Things were looking a little bleak when another boat appeared, and this time a voice shouted “It’s the drunken piper, we were just talking about you, but I never thought I would be introducing you to anyone here”. Somehow, humiliation is made so much better when it is in front of people you know, so somewhat ungraciously,I just told the voice to hurry up and get us out.

I tied a rope to the dinghy as Iain tried to climb up the ladder at the back of the cruiser. He really seemed to be struggling, and I was still in the freezing water. As I gave some words of encouragement to Iain, the problem became clear. He had tucked his waterproof trousers into his boots, and now they were like incontinence pants, ballooning out with more than his own body weight in water. When he eventually got on board, the weight of water and gravity struck and the waterproof trousers fell down flooding the beautiful carpeted deck.

We picked up the sailing dinghy on the Friday, insured it on Saturday, wrecked it on Sunday and claimed the insurance on Monday.

There was one plus point. Grandfather of wife of Willox Dixon had given me a pair of trainers, made by convicts in Perth Prison. Now I fully understand that footwear should be functional and not just fashionable, but these monstrosities were clearly the prisoners’ revenge on society. Unfortunately I actually failed to lose them when the boat capsized as they had got caught on the boat somehow, but with a bit of help, they did manage to disappear into the loch. I paid for this falsehood though, as I obviously overplayed the sadness of my great loss, and grandfather of wife brought me another pair.

Listening to Where does the love go by Roger Moore and Mission Impossible with Norwegian Wood by Alan Copeland

Ah spring, when a young man’s fancy turns to cleaning! I am not sure that it is actually spring yet, but clearing the junk out is at home. I blame it on that Kondo woman who it appears, through Gris Gris or dark art, has wife of Willox Dixon under her malign influence. To be fair, de-cluttering is probably a good thing, except for some reason it is my records and books that seem to be classified as junk.

That is not exactly what I was going to write about. Rather, the day’s scribbles are about the fact that wife of Willox Dixon is incredibly clumsy. If there is a step to trip over or a birthday cake to stand in, she will (and has) manage it. During the clear out wife of WD managed to hoover the head off a clown. I probably should clarify that the clown is in fact a a colourful crystal sculpture … actually it’s the ugliest bastard of a clown in brightly coloured glass. This thing looks a bit like Ronald MacDonald gone bad and hit by a truck. It was though, I am told, by a famous artist, but clearly this must have been one of his more troubled periods. This thing really is ugly.

Before you question me on my credentials as an art collector, I will share the story of how it arrived chez Newborn.

I and a number of family members all played in a pipe band. In fact everyone in the band is a relative. This is not necessarily a good thing, especially if you have seen some of my family. When the band is out, it is possible to see children screaming in fear when they see my cousin Lilly armed with her pipes. If I tell you that one of the cousins is named after a Chilean battleship, I can probably leave the descriptions out.

We had been asked to play at a Royal Charity Gala in Monaco. Clearly this was not based on ability, and may have in fact been akin to coming out to see the freaks, but we duly flew out to Monaco to perform.

After our performance, we took our seats at our table, sponsored by a well known whisky company, amidst the the glitz, glamour and diamonds of rich, royals and film stars. On each seat was an envelope with a number on it. To our horror, we discovered the idea was to put money in the envelope and then it acted as a raffle ticket. The afternoon had been spent in the bar in the casino, so the horror was really the fact that we were flat broke. So all we could do was hope the envelopes were not opened publicly.

Miss France and Ewan McGregor were showing the prizes and drawing the envelopes. A painting by an Italian artist was the first prize up, and then, to gasps from the crowd, and looking like melted opal fruits, a crystal sculpture of a clown by the famous artist. I turned to father of Willox Dixon, and told him, this was my prize. No sooner had we laughed at that, than the number was announced and sure enough, it was mine. I slowly headed for the stage. “What in the name of God am I going to do with that?” to which the Young McGregor replied “Just take the damn thing!”, and so I became the proud owner of a molten glass monstrosity. Suddenly I longed to go back to my normal state of winning nothing in raffles.

I headed back to my seat depressed in spirit and and by the weight of the scariest clown since Pennywise. The clown immediately got a band tie and a cigarette put in its mouth, and sat on the table, a terrifying pagan idol, when a sophisticated figure in black tie appeared behind my father, and announced “You can’t do that, it’s by a famous artist”. I immediately removed the tie as soon as I realised who it was. My father, oblivious, started chatting to Roger Moore.

“Are you local yourself?”

“Yes, I have had a house here for a number of years”

“And what is it you do yourself?”

“I’m an actor.”

“Would I have seen you in anything?”

By this time Roger Moore is unclear if he should shout “Security, this man is intoxicated!” or if he really didn’t know who he was, which in reality was the truth. “Would I have seen you in anything?”

“James Bond?”

“Is that not Sean Connery?”

Sadly I never was able to find out if, as in The Persuaders, Mr Moore’s suit was designed by Mr Moore. Still, he isn’t a real spy, and I did actually meet one, I think.

A chilly Moscow morning and the Highlanders are wandering round thinking we should not have left the croft, and desperately trying to find a coffee. We couldn’t read the signs, and there were no obvious shop windows. Beer or vodka was not a problem as we were surrounded by little booths selling beer, and babushkas selling vodka in the entrances to buildings and the underground. An old man heard us moaning, and in a broad north of England accent told us he was heading to a bar and would order coffee for us.

As we were getting ready to leave we went to thank the old man. He was sitting at the bar, chatting in what sounded like really good Russian. After thanking him we commented on how good his Russian sounded and asked if he was on holiday. He told us that in fact lived in Moscow. We obviously asked how long he had lived there and he replied “Since 1965”.

Our faces must have been a picture as we all thought “SPY!” Somehow though, it seemed really rude to ask him after he got us coffee.

Listening to Mr Ghost Goes to Town by the 5 Jones Boys and Little Demon by Screamin Jay Hawkins.

I have rattled on in the past about the history and traditions of Slackbuie. So rich is it, that there is no surprise that we have academics visiting to collect stories. I suppose it is a surprise that this is a job, and even more of surprise, that as a noted raconteur and keeper of the traditions, they took so long to come and see me.

Last night though, there was a rattle at the door, and a young man with a goatee, and an old bodach with a flat cap were standing there. Goatee started to open his mouth when Flat Cap pushed past him into my house. “Do you not offer guests something?” he demanded. “Well, you weren’t strictly invited” I replied, to which he said, “Yes please, I’ll have both.”

Now this immediately marked Flat Cap as a man of the world. Goatee was obviously an academic, but Flat Cap had been around. To be honest, he looked like he had been around so much that his birth certificate was in Latin. Whilst it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to deduce all this, I realise that there could be some youngster out there not following this line of thought. Tea is always accompanied by something to eat, a dram isn’t. So ‘both’ gets you a a dram and something more solid (but less nourishing) with it.

After selecting something interesting in the form of a bottle, we settled down to swap stories. Sitting, glass in hand in the flickering firelight, fortified against the weather and all harm, the supernatural is the way these things tend to go. I kicked off.

“One winter evening in late November, I was sitting by the fire, meditating on the movement of the flames and the crackle and hiss of the burning wood, when I became aware of another sound, quietly sliding under the sound of the westerly wind hitting the gable end. I went to the window, and the gentle sound that had entered into my awareness became clearer as the coo cooing of a pigeon. I knew it couldn’t be a wood pigeon, as it coos to the rhythm of take two cows taffy take, which is nothing like a coo cooing. Looking out I half expected the reflection of the fire flames to take a more solid shape, when I saw the messenger pigeon – with an envelope in its mouth. After some coaxing the pigeon came close enough for me to grab the envelope addressed to myself. I ripped open the top, eager to see who would send me a missive on a night like this. It was from Father Damian. Captain MacDonald had died. As he was delivering the viaticum, MacDonald’s last breath was used to demand to pipe at his funeral, and the good Father wanted to speak to me about it.

MacDonald had been a difficult man in life, with a terrible thirst that he claimed had come over him in the desert, but we had got on just fine. Related through drink perhaps. The last time I had seen him, his face was the purple of a good wine grape, which suggested he might not be long for this world.

Buttoning up my coat against the foul night, I headed to the chapel. In the darkened interior, illuminated only by candles, was MacDonald’s coffin. The candles reflecting off the brass handles of the container of MacDonald’s earthly remains, and highlighting the pain and blood on the crucified Christ looking down on the coffin.

A cough behind me alerted me to the entry of Father Damian and young MacDonald. “Father Damian”… “Mr Dixon” he replied in a hushed tone, placing a whisky bottle and three glasses on the coffin lid.

In the silence of the church, we heard the scratching in the coffin, and I swear the old Captain was trying for the bottle. Even in death, he had a thirst like a moose.”

Well by the time I had finished, Goatee was gibbering – intellectual to inebriated in the space of a few glasses. No wonder educational standards have fallen. Flat Cap might remember when the whole area was covered in ice, but he was made of sterner stuff, and it was clear the bottles would not be going back in the cupboard.

“You know” he said “I am a medium and a story teller.” Whilst not entirely sure how we got on to clothes, I waited for him to follow up his claim. “There are three types of spirits” he began to explain. “A ghost, a poltergoose and a demonic spirit, but don’t you worry, there is a test to know which is which. You ask to shake their hand.” He explained that a ghost has no substance so can’t shake your hand, a poltergeist has substance, so it will shake your hand, and finally, a demonic spirit has no substance but will try to trick you into thinking it has shaken your hand.

“Incredible, but what do you do when you discover it is a demonic spirit?”

“You run like buggery! What did you think you would do?”

Sage advice indeed.