In my haste to recount the tale of alien para gliders yesterday I forgot one important point the militia man made yesterday, that he and his father had thought about buying our des res years ago for the measly sum of £500! What stopped them was there seemed to be a dispute over who owned the fields that came with it. He also remembered a time when there was a roadway past our HQ and around the hill, he clearly remembers coal lorries struggling up the lane. He was also the unfortunate gardener that Maggie set about when we were stealing apples for the pigs a while ago! I didn't own up to being the mental goat owner, the goat being mental, not me that is.
I have only ever known one other place in the world where people stop and tell you their whole life stories other than here in our valley. That was in the Outer Hebrides. For reasons too complicated to explain I took Ben and Bethan up to the far flung Isles to experience the Highlands and Islands in 1992.
We lodged in a small village called Balallen, south of Stornaway and were very quickly welcomed into the community. Every one knew every one else and nobody did anything without everyone being involved. A real sense of community and a real need for alcohol to take your mind off the fact that you were marooned. Trapped. Unable to go anywhere unless the ferry took you.
It was quite an experience. As we were "incomers" we were fascinating to the locals who just had to get to know us. I soon learned not to be in a hurry as peoples need to get to know us always slowed things down. Simple things like posting a card took an age as the postmistress needed to know all about us and who the card was going to. Then she would hand me my letters and ask who they were from and was it good news and so on.
We got used to the weather, the storm force winds rampaging over the isle, with nothing to hinder their progress they rushed in from the Atlantic and unleashed their fury on the small crofters cottages. When the wind didn't blow you off your feet the midges devoured your flesh, to live there you had to be a hardy soul. And yet we met people who had lived their entire lives in the same bay, never having ventured past the end of their track.
One happy soul was our neighbour. In a lull from the winds and just before the midges became airborne we swapped life stories over the chain link fence. He had considerably more stories than I on account that he had lived nearly three times as long as me already. A nice jovial chap, the islands best mechanic it turned out, he had retired the year before. He had been in the army, during World War Two had been a lorry driver and had driven his truck four times across India ferrying supplies the long overland route to our troops. He had survived all sorts of hardships and at the wars end got on a troop ship to come home. The long trip home was broken by a short spell in Indonesia where he and all the troops with him were given a choice, get back on the ship and go home or get on the ship in the next berth and go to start a new life in Australia. He came home to the Outer Hebrides and worked in the village garage for the next 47 years. It was fantastic on the island, he met and married his wife, they had two children, he had everything he ever needed here.
He smiled at the memories and we stood in silence looking out over the beautiful but barren windswept landscape. A few midges began their sorties and it was time to shelter indoors before their attention became too painful to bear. As he turned away from me I asked "Ever wish you had got on the other ship?"
He stopped halfway down the path and beamed at me "Every bloody day!" he shouted as he waved goodbye shutting the door.
No comments:
Post a Comment