Around Scotland by Motor Caravan
(This verse - if, indeed, verse it is - is to me so loose that it could almost be accused of being wanton. It was my sketch book, during the two weeks that we were away in Scotland - instant impressions: And whilst my intention was to tighten it up once we got back, frankly, the holiday was so relaxed that I have decided not to tinker with it too much.)
ONE - WARWICK
Warwick Racecourse!
Here we laid our heads down for our first night,
Springboard for the dirty dash for Glasgow,
And the Highlands: Warwick, this
Historic concourse,
Where, no surprise, it's raining:
Wet streets glistening in the lamplight,
Like sparkling gems of topaz,
Amber, jade and ruby,
Created by the lights of passing cars,
Lapis-ladis jewellery,
And the carillon chimes of Saint Mary's church,
Ring out over us,
As beneath her proud red brick houses, fine
Coaching inns, old taverns, bars,
We close our eyes;
And hear the spectral hoof beat,
Of a thousand long dead horses,
Thundering past the motor caravan window,
All bunched together, lathered, straining
To be first across the finishing line.
TWO - THE M6Three hundred and sixty miles to run!
Motorway,
Motorway,
And yet more,
Motorway,
The tyres like angry hornets hum
Along the endless hours of tarmacadam road,
And before us,
Somewhere, lies the Border.
In the outside lane, Porsche's hammer by,
Driven by entrepreneurial geniuses,
Jackets hung on hooks behind them,
Mobiles under chins, we find them,
Belting past, in order
To keep their schedules:
Drum up business, sum up margins,
Bring up projects, lay out bargains,
Wine customers and dine them,
Entertain, behind closed doors,
('Don't tell the Wife, I won't tell yours!')
Close the deal and sign them.
They've left us all behind in life,
As they speed past,
(Singing they'd be in Scotland afore us,)
But you try holding a motor caravan,
In fifth gear, doing eighty-five,
Against the constant buffeting,
Of tarpaulin covered lorries,
Driven by long suffering
Truckers, passing us
And then being passed again,
Before they flash us back,
Into the safety of the slow lane.
THREE - THE BORDERS
Gretna Green, the Blacksmith's shop,
Jokes about eloping;
And of course, I propose.
She turns me down -
Says she's already married,
Reminds me I am too,
(Of course I am! Where would I be
If I hadn't married you?)
Three times for her
And twice for me,
Each now holding on and hoping
The knot stays firm:
'Ennery the Eighth, I am!'
I sing, merrily,
And earn a clip around my head,
Which makes my inner ear
Drum ring painfully:
"One day we will grow up, Dear,
I suppose?"
Then Glasgow:
The merging of the motorway
Demanding all our concentration,
As many fast converging highways,
Divide this sprawling conurbation,
Which spreads between the intersection,
Of idle doodlings by McAlpine,
All joined up like Hebrew writing,
Or strings of DNA:
Their conundrum, interjecting tantrums,
When we loose our way, again,
And she, needing the last say again,
Says it was I who got it wrong!
Then making up once more before,
We reach Loch Lomond's bonnie banks,
Turn left, drive down beside the shore,
Of bonnier banks by far, for sure:
And stop!
We've arrived - this is Loch Long!
FOUR - ARROCHERIn the morning we lift the shutters,
Then quickly pull them shut again,
Against sunlight streaming in,
Which blinds our eyes,
Still strained from miles of tensed up driving,
Through countless hours of wind and rain;
And slowly waking, reason taking
Over, we, too, take stock,
This is our first stop: Arrocher.
Allow ourselves a leisurely arising,
And then, at breakfast, watch
Through the open off-side window,
Of the van, a yacht,
With billowy orange spinnaker,
Well filled, like some lady politician's bosom,
"Ann Widdecombe", painted on her transom,
Bustling down the loch,
Bound for Gairloch and the sea,
And watching her traversing, we
Are filled with deep innermost contentment.
FIVE - ARISAIGBet you've never found a jewel,
Like the one that we found,
It was an accident, of course,
That we stumbled on this gem,
This magic piece of ground.
The stroke of chance?
That on that Sunday,
The water heater broke on us,
No hot water! What a fuss!
We could not head on North, and thus
Had to hang around Fort William,
To get it fixed on Monday.
And so we found this tiny field,
Which spilled down, like a billion
Lemmings, rushing over itself,
In its eagerness to reach the sea,
Cascading over sandy dunes
And granite outcrops,
And like thrilled term-end
School kids, impatiently, we
Leveled up the van and followed
Down to a rocky point, where I,
Showing off in front of a German Girl,
In a motor caravan parked nearby,
Drew breath, flexed muscles, dived right in,
Squealed with cold,
And like some length of cine film
Run backwards, quickly dived right out again!
We nearly had to scold the sun to go to bed,
That night:
We sat outside, protected from the midges,
By a citronella candle, feeling
All right;
And, not long before eleven, the blood red
Sun dropped into a fading blue Atlantic,
Behind the peaks of Skye and Rhum and Eigg,
What sight!
Oh! you mysterious islands with evocative titles,
Tell us your secrets, show us your rituals,
Pull us close to you,
Take us in nuptials:
You fade in the twilight,
Teasing our senses,
Just over the water,
And after the sun set,
Came his favourite daughter,
The moon:
When the moon came out,
I saw her draw a silver line across the sea,
A line dividing myth and magic,
From boring, dull, reality.
SIX - STRATHCARRON & CROIK CHURCH
The rushing, gushing, eager river,
Buzzards mewling, wheeling over,
The same as last time, next time,
And for ever....
Here, on a slab of rock, beside the track,
We parked above the tumbling gorge,
Poured out a glass of wine and
Told our rock that we were back;
And when I asked if others had
Usurped this place, without my leave
In all the years I'd been away,
The eternal stone kept an infernal silence,
Refused to gossip, prattle, give
Up some other lover's secret,
So that, like a man,
Returning to a long known harlot,
All that I could say,
Was that this place belonged to me,
And I belonged to it,
Today.
But not so for the crofters of Wester Gruinards,
And The Craigs,
Pitiful objects of the Highland Clearances,
Moved on, crofts burned, when their lands
Were wanted by the Lairds for other uses,
The greedy claims, vile abuses,
Of extensive land owning,
Wont disregard that power produces;
And the church at Croick,
At the end of this lonely road, stands
A memorial to these great injustices:
Here, crofters huddled up against
The south-west transept, for a little shelter,
And the imprint of their names,
Graffiti, scratched by desperate hands,
On the church's plain glass window,
Remind us they were here:
Killroy was here!
And over-awed, standing on the track
That leads between the lichened graves,
We count our blessings:
By the grace of God, we will return,
But Killroy, Kinsale and Donald Ross,
Are never coming back.
SEVEN - ARDVREK CASTLE, LOCH ASSYNT
Perfidious McCloud!
Montrose will surely come again,
Sit down beside you at your board,
And, for ever, haunt you:
Even now above your castle's ruins,
We hear the rattle of his chains,
His ghost coming back to taunt you,
Montrose! That neck-racked ghost,
Which shows amidst the winds and rains,
That storm across Assynt:
You offered out a hand to him,
And called it hospitality,
Disguised it in a bloody cloak,
Of the very vilest treachery,
Gave him to the Royalists,
To Edinburgh and the block:
Tonight we see the blood stains spread
Across his doublet and his stock,
With uneasy jest we draw the blinds,
Pull close the door, lock tight,
Against the storm, the ghostly strains,
The tortured shrieks we seem to hear,
The disembowelled smell of fear,
Exuding from your nearby dungeons,
Issuing from your crumbling towers,
This wicked, storm-tossed, night.
EIGHT - ALTNAHARRA IN THE RAIN
Yesterday, I didn't feel much like writing poetry,
Come to think of it I couldn't see such beauty,
In rain sodden loch:
The rain sleeted in all day,
Behind a South West wind, persistently,
A deep depression coming in behind;
And I sat inside the motor caravan,
Black thoughts brooding in my mind,
Cabin cribbed (that's Shakespeare!), and confined,
And taking morbid stock
Of all my shortcomings,
Listing all the negatives,
Ignoring any positives:
And a great, big, storm cloud sat
Over Ben Klibreck,
Just like a grieving widow woman's shawl,
Or some undertaker's hat!
NINE - ALTNAHARRA, THE CROFT
Think!
Three hundred years ago this stone,
Was lifted into place by callused hands,
With sods of turf on top to form the walls,
And reeds above to cover in the roof,
Here some long dead Duncan, McTavish or MacBeth,
Laid out this site and built his home,
Watched his stock lest they should roam,
From this pile of rubble, these scattered rocks,
Round which his children's, children's,
Children's animals now graze,
Here he lived and loved, raised his brood,
Here he sheared his sheep,
Here he honed his sword and fell to fitful sleep,
On guard against some trespass to his flocks:
He's dead now, this Duncan! His eyes sunk in,
No vibrance from that stocky frame,
Tight stretched the pallid, yellow, skin,
His bones, these stones, inanimate,
Yet, standing here, amidst these ruins,
Something causes me ponder,
Makes me humble, raise my hat,
And try to think quite hard about,
That long gone Highland clansman, herdsman,
In reverence and wonder!
TEN - KINLOCH RANNOCH - I
Pedantic clouds,
Picking your prissy way,
Over Meall Buidhe and Cam Chreag,
Like in-bred sissy poodles!
We command you: Go away today,
Let the sunshine have its say today,
For this is our last day today,
And we're spending it in Eden!
For surely this must be the place,
Where God set out His garden:
Here, well I can see God,
Landscaping His passion,
Take out His note book,
Making some jottings,
Sketching some doodles,
Planting the heather,
Etching the river,
Putting down boulders,
In random like fashion,
Creating the wild deer,
That blend into the hill, here,
Here, far from the madding crowd,
God preserving for ever,
This vast extravaganza,
For any one who dares
To dream their dreams aloud.
ELEVEN - KINLOCH RANNOCH - Il
Emotions flooding back!
Forty year ago, as a callow,
Lonely lad of twenty,
I found this place.....
I was a stranger, lately from the south,
Working as a hack
Journalist in Dundee:
I had no need to be alone,
Was armed with plenty
Of addresses, given me
By well meaning friends,
Each one painstakingly
Written down in my notebook,
And I knew that I was always free,
To call on any single one of them,
For invitations, friendship, and hospitality.
But mine had been a somewhat
Sheltered background:
Was taught that, if you honoured King and County,
Gave up your seat for ladies, went to Church,
Read the obituaries, opened your bowels,
With absolute consistent regularity,
You would get on in life, you would succeed,
Had space reserved in Heaven, indeed,
You were absolutely guaranteed
Half-crowns in your Christmas Pudding,
Certain of survival:
And though I tried to please, do all these things,
In truth I seldom read my bible!
I had a little Latin and some French, but basically,
I only understood the Oxford accent,
And danced the Waltz:
Here, at their parties, they danced such intricately
Complicated formation dances,
In kilts, of course!
And I'd defy anyone to understand
The dialect that emanated
From the place I lodged, Lochee!
And so, feeling out of place, short on love,
A disappointment to my parents,
Sent up here in disgrace,
I'd crank the handle of my faithful
'Purr, weenie, Fordie, Prefect',
And head out for the isolation of
This Heavenly open space,
Convinced I was a misfit,
Dismissed as being a reject,
Looking for some little place
Where I felt that I belonged:
Here, there was nature, nothing else,
Here I felt ease within myself,
Here, I would put up my rod, put up my tent,
And fish until the day was spent,
On charcoal grill, I'd cook my kill,
Wash my face and clean my teeth,
In this same river; and then beneath,
The thick weave of my khaki sleeping bag, I'd wriggle,
And as the campfire embers died, I'd snuggle
Down - a boy fulfilled, a boy content.
And in this same place, I now stand,
Contemplating how much sand,
Has spilled out through the hour glass,
Wondering just how much river,
Has flowed by this spot since last,
I stood here,
Pondering just how long is ever,
How many turns my life has taken,
Concluding, if I'm not mistaken,
That simply nothing here has changed,
The view, the boy, the man:
All are just the same:
The present, future, past,
All of them remain:
The boy's become the man,
But the man is still the boy,
And to wear the cloak of both of them,
Is the right I claim!
