odds & ends

Boy with lame pigeon. ~ At a BB summer camp near Gullane in the 1960s, when I was 13 or 14. Billy was a troubled lad, a bit rebellious, but he formed a close bond with this injured bird.

The chapel at Tarbet (Loch Nevis). Now a bunkhouse. 8/6/82

Kylesku from Sail Gharbh - bridge nearing completion, ferry nearing retirement. 4pm, 9/6/84

Garbh-eilean - NATO exercise off the NW coast. 1pm, 17/6/88 Officially the Parph was closed, with sentries on the road, but I'd sneaked round on the blind side from Sandwood. Watching the bombardment of poor old Garbh-eilean was somewhere between stirring and shocking. This photo was taken from a respectful distance, with a 500mm lens.

Sisters (1) Argyle St., Glasgow, 1976

Sisters (2) Queen's Park, Glasgow, 1977

The Finnieston Ferry, with the freighter Victore at Mavisbank Quay. Glasgow, 16/03/77 ~ The grandiose Co-op warehouse on the left is still there (now loft apartments), and a bit of the Kingston Bridge is visible, but everything else is changed utterly.

Used car lot after the Big Snow of January 1987. Shields Road, Glasgow In the second week of January 1987 there was exceptionally cold air over the near continent, and a depression centred on the English Channel brought strong easterly winds to the whole country. There was heavy snowfall all along the east coast, up to 20 inches, but the west largely escaped this - except that the wind was able to funnel through the Forth - Clyde Valley, and on the morning of Monday 12th it dumped the heaviest fall of snow that I can remember in Glasgow. The city was effectively paralysed, even the motorways beyond saving, and not much moved on wheels that day.

Not quite what it seems - the locomotive suspended from the Finnieston Crane was fashioned from straw by the wonderful George Wylie (the scul?tor), and hung there for the duration of the Garden Festival. It was later ceremonially burnt (though not in situ - which would have been spectacular, but not good for the crane) - as a symbol of the destruction of heavy industry on Clydeside. Glasgow, 08/88

Tigh nam Bodach, in Gleann Cailliche, a remote extension of Glen Lyon.3pm, 20/08/95 "The Cailleach was the Celtic creator goddess, encountered throughout the length and breadth of Scotland. In the Lothians, she is particularly linked with another conical hill, Berwick Law. But deep inside the Glen, an almost unique structure can be found to the creator goddess: the house of the Cailleach, or the Tigh Nam Bodach. This small stone structure, located high up the mountains at the head of Glen Lyon, is probably the only surviving shrine to the pagan Mother Goddess, the Cailleach. Until his death some years ago, the last “servant” of the Mother Goddess was Bob Bissett, head stalker of the Invermeran estate. The house was the home of the Cailleach (Mother Goddess), the Bodach (old Man) and the smaller Nighean (the Daughter), while two smaller children remained inside the house. The Creator Goddess only lived in [outside?] her house from May 1 to October 30, from Beltane to Halloween, the Celtic festivals that mark the beginning and end of summer. The Cailleach and her family is symbolised by very heavy water-worn stones shaped like dumb-bells. The Cailleach herself is some 18 inches high, while her Daughter is only 3 inches tall. The Cailleach resided past Loch Lyon, up Glen Cailleach, named after her. Fresh thatch was placed on the roof, and the stones were brought outside to watch over the herds during the summer. When the herds moved in October, the divine family were sealed up for the winter and the house was made weather tight. The ritual was said to have been performed for centuries until the pattern of farming changed, and as sheep replaced cattle, and the people moved away, the cult diminished – but Bob Bissett continued the custom. The two glens show the relationship between the Mother Goddess, the Creator, Cailleach, and the Sun God, Lugh, Glen Lyon. That it is in this remote region that worship of the Cailleach has persevered into the 21st century should not come as a surprise. The name of the House is known both as 'Tigh na Cailliche' (A L F Rivet, 1961) or 'Taigh-nam- Bodach' (A C Thomas and A Ross), depending on which deity would take precedence, the Cailleach or the Bodan. Archaeological reports from 1967 stated that originally, there were 12 stones inside, which one source felt could be linked with St Meuran and his eleven disciples. If this was ever the case, it is clear that it were the locals trying to put some Christian veneer on their pagan worship – and not the other way around…" http://www.philipcoppens.com/glenlyon.html

Tigh nam Bodach as I found it on 01/06/03.

Clach nan Con Fionn, in the Coire Fionnaraich. 06/06/85 ~ Where the legendary Fionn mac Cumhaill tethered his hounds while hunting.

This cost my grandfather £2 in 1905, which was probably more than his weekly wage. What my grandmother thought of it is not recorded.

The Angel of Camasunary, and thereby hangs a tale. 30/09/81 ~ From the Camban bothy book : - 11th Sept. Came from Glen Affric. I am very wet and cold, and it’s rainy and windy outside. I went wood-gathering on the other side of the river. There was a rainbow - this strange melancholy oozing wet land with a brilliant gleaming rainbow low over the hills. It was very beautiful. I am going to stay here a while, to heal my septic blisters and to think. The wood I got was very wet, and a miserable mealy-mouthed little fire it is. 12th Spasms of sunlight appearing on random hills. I’ve been for a long walk getting wood and am again soaked. Somebody left some pieces of Kendal Mint Cake. This is my 10th day without smoking and I am violently craving a cigarette. A tragic tale. [ 14/9 . . . met a beautiful, blistered, blonde mountain girl. R - - S - - - - - - - - - (Inverness) ] 15th It’s my 21st birthday today, and my cuts still haven’t healed., and it’s misty, rainy and cold, but I am very glad I am here. 17th I walked to Shiel Bridge for supplies. Alas no candles apart from fancy ones. The nearest are at Dornie. I ate in the café and then drank 3 pints in the Kintail Hotel (1st drink for 2 weeks) and listened to lugubrious but pleasant Gaelic ballads. The alcohol and chocolate biscuits I’d consumed did me in and I grotesquely hobbled back here. I’m now completely knackered and am going to sleep. 18th It’s been raining non-stop all night and all day. The roof’s leaking in several places and there’s no more pans to catch the drips. I’ve been singing frenzied songs of praise to the sun but it’s completely ignoring me. It’s raining hard down the chimney and all the dry wood is soaked. I have brilliant, very vivid dreams here and extraordinary memories keep coming to me. I’m going to stay here a few more days, then go to Skye. As is obvious, I like doing things slowly. 19th Heavy rain all night and all day. 20th Again very heavy rain and wind and it’s cold. What do other vegetarians do about walking boots? My gymshoes are wretched sores upon this earth. 21st Frenzied wind and rain all night and this morning. I’m off to Skye via Ratagan. It’s been a fantastic place to stay and I will be back someday. Freya B------ (London) Camasunary, late September, 20-odd years ago, I was staying there on and off for a week. Then as now, the bothy was well-frequented, and the second night saw the arrival a couple from the north of England on a bothying trip. In the course of the fireside craic they mentioned having met a mysterious, solitary, barefooted girl who was in residence at Camban - I, at the back of the room, then as now semi-detached, pricked up my ears at this. I wanted to ask what she was like, but feared that (a) the question would appear objectionably sexist, and (b) the answer would be that she was built like the back of a bus, thus destroying my fond imaginings, so I didn't. I went off for a couple of nights camping at Coruisk, getting a good drubbing for my pains, then squelched back to the bothy to dry out. A half-day window of fine weather gave me a brilliant afternoon on Blaven, getting back about 5 to find sitting at the table in the window-recess a breathtakingly beautiful, slightly-built, blonde girl, in jeans and a woollen jumper - then I looked at her feet . . . "Ah, I think you are the famous Barefoot Girl from Camban, and I claim my £10." She smiled, which was more than that deserved, and I was - smitten? - more like pole-axed. I performed one or two chores for her, fetched water, and over dinner we (yes, even I ! ) chatted - she was half- Finnish, at odds with her parents, lived in a squat in London, worked for the Parks Dept., was a committed vegetarian (hence the canvas rather than leather boots when the terrain/weather demanded footwear). She had travelled in the Middle East, but this was her first trip north, and she was in awe of the scale and loneliness of the Highlands, in love with it too. Later a young chap also from the London area came in, the conversation turned to this and that, and on the pretext of wood-gathering I withdrew and went outside for a think. Could I? Would she? Should I even try? I leaden-footed and leaden-spirited, she an angel with wings, could she teach me to fly or would I drag her down to earth? In the gathering dusk a small herd of hinds ambled down to the beach to nibble at the seaweed. Having learned already her love of these and of all beasts, I went back in to fetch her (the third party had gone to bed) and hand in hand we stood in the thin darkening drizzle watching them. Peace and stillness, the gentle rhythmic susurration of the sea, the closeness of Freya - there is a sense in which everything has gone downhill from this moment. Then we went back inside to sit around the fire till it died out. She was keeping an elaborate journal of her trip, and I diffidently asked if I might read just a page of it - she selected a page and passed it to me, and I was astonished at the quality of her writing, the style and originality of thought - the bothy book extract above gives just a faint flavour of it. Love, admiration, awe, reverence - I felt overwhelmed, while knowing I was building an edifice which my own inadequacies would undermine. I had to fly home the next morning (a Loganair Islander from Broadford to Glasgow - those were the days). With some misgivings I extracted a promise from her that she would look me up if her eventual (hitch-hiking) return took her through the city, thus giving her the chance to avoid a meeting without breaking her word. A week or two passed, then - a phone call. She was at Central Station, could I pick her up and give her a bed for the night? One night, two nights, what we did during the day, I really can't remember, I was in a haze of turmoil, head and heart in chaos and conflict. One clear image only - Pollok Park it must have been (the sound of the police pipe band practice was drifting over on the breeze), she standing with her back to me under a golden chestnut tree, sunlight dappling her golden hair, my heart dumb and full to bursting. I used to wonder whether if I had loved her less I might have been less punctilious about the harm I would do her; perhaps we could have worked the relationship through to its natural end, she sooner or later realising what an awful mistake she had made, I coming to accept that the pedestal I had set her on was built of sand and that instead of an angel’s wings she had feet of clay, just like the rest of us. Loving her was at once the best and worst thing I could have done. Best, need I explain? Worst, the lack of a resolution left me trapped in an emotional blind alley. There have been other women, not many, I’m not the type, subjectively or objectively, women who have shown me every comfort, one or two have even said they loved me, before they grew tired and in the end sick of the lack of conviction with which I returned their love. After all, they weren’t Freya. I let her go, bought her a train ticket to London. We exchanged a few letters, mine via her brother's address, but I've never seen her again. Call me seventeen kinds of fool, I do myself, but I would never have been any good for her. I hope dearly that she's happy and fulfilled. This tale seemed to grow legs of its own, and 10 years after I wrote it I was contacted by Christopher Sleight of the BBC 'Out of Doors' radio programme who wished to make a podcast of it. http://mountainpodcast.com/episode/5-the-angel-of-camasunary/

After I wash my bike and tip the oily soapy water down the stank, something magical happens.

Old turntable ferry-boat at North Strome. 4.30pm, 9/11/94

. . . which may or may not be this one (scanned from a 1945 AA Road Book).

Royal Mail's MLO (Mechanised Letter Office) at Springfield Quay, Glasgow, which was only there from 1985 to 1993. This photo was scanned from the cover of an RM staff magazine.

Kelvingrove Park, Glasgow, 20/12/09.

Stevenson Memorial Church, Belmont Bridge, Glasgow. 20/12/09

View west of south from Ruchill Park. 15 October 2009

Late autumn afternoon at the Mondriaan. I had a flat here for a few years. 21 October 2009

Sonya took a bit of coaxing to step on to the canal. 10 January 2010

Happy family on the F&C, below the Maryhill locks. August 2009

Lennoxtown Parish Church. March 1975 This was gutted by fire in 1983 and is still a shell, with the upper part of the tower gone.

Inf., IV, 68-72

. . . vidi un fuoco, ch' emisperio di tenebre vincia. Di lungi v' erevamo ancora un poco ma non si ch' io non discernessi in parte che onorevol gente possedea quel loco. . . . . . . . . . I saw a fire, enclosed by a hemisphere of gloom. We were still some distance from it, but not so far that I could not discern that honorable men occupied that place.

Inf., VI, 7-9

Io sono al terzo cerchio, della piova etterna, maladetta, fredda e greve: regola e qualita mai non l'e nuova. . . . . . . I am at the third circle, of the rain eternal, accursed, cold and heavy; in quantity and quality it never changes.

Inf., VI, 49-54

. . . . . . . "La tua città, ch'è piena d'invidia si che già trabocca il sacco, seco mi tenne in la vita serena. Voi cittadini mi chiamaste Ciacco; per la dannosa colpa della gola, come tu vedi, alla pioggia mi fiacco.". . . . . . "That city of yours, which is so full of envy that already she overflows with it, held me close to her in the bright life, You citizens used to call me 'Porky', and for the damnable sin of gluttony, as you can see, I am beaten down by the rain."

Inf. XIII, 4-10

Non fronda verde ma di color fosco, non rami schietti ma nodosi e' involti, non pomi v'eran ma stecchi con tòsco. Non han' si aspri sterpi né si folti quelle fiere selvagge ch' in odio hanno tra Cecina e Corneto i luoghi cólti. Quivi le brutte Arpie lor nidi fanno . . . Leaves not green but of a dusky hue, branches not smooth but knotted and twisted, no fruits here, just poisonous thorns. They do not haunt such dense and tangled thickets, those savage beasts which shun the cultivated land between Cecina and Corneto. Here the brutish Harpies make their nests . . .

Inf., XIII, 37

Uomini fummo, ed or siam' fatti sterpi We were men, but now we are made stocks.

Inf., XV, 82 - 85

. . . chè 'n la mente m' è fitta, e or m'accora, la cara e buona imagine paterna di voi quando nel mondo ad ora ad ora m'insegnavate come l'uom s'etterna. . . . for there is fixed in my mind, and now in my heart, the dear, good, fatherly image of you, when in the world time after time you taught me how a man might make himself immortal.

Inf. XV, 121-124

. . . parve di coloro che corrono a Verona il drappo verde per la campagna; e parve di costoro quegli che vince, non colui che perde . . . he looked like those who race at Verona for the Green Cloth, through the countryside; and of them he looked like the winner, not the loser.

Forth Road Bridge under construction. Spring/summer 1962

South Queensferry. November 1976

Stonehaven welcomes in the New Year 00.05, 01/01/14

Gullane, ?1962