Diary 12^th August 2000 & Images from Lairg & journey south.

Saturday 12^th August

After I left Grantown on Spey yesterday I spent the night in Invergordon. In the early Seventies I had worked there. Most of the pipes for the North Sea oil were wrapped with their bitumen and fibreglass protectiive coating here.

I left Invergordon this morning and taking a leisurely drive north over the Struie, through Bonar Bridge continuing along the banks of the River Shin it was around midday that I arrived in Lairg.

The first thing I did was to drive around the village to establish what had changed, what was still the same and familiarise myself with the place. I went to visit Robbie Munro, he now lives in Manchester but is here visiting family at the moment. I saw Angus Munro who now runs the local supermarket at Lochside. Went on to see Angus MacDonald, Saval, but I was informed that he was suffering from alcoholism and was currently drying out in Golspie hospital. it was expected that he would return home tomorrow afternoon. I went up to Saval, about four miles north of the village and spent an enjoyable hour with his mother who is about 86, fit and healthy.

Continuing my tour I drove back down and around Lairg Muir where I came across Sandy Grey. He was in a field baling the hay for Sydney house, which is now owned by an incomer. I next went to his house where I was greeted by his wife Margaret, who is now a beautiful white haired and rosy cheeked mature lady. She had been baking and the smell in the kitchen filled me with nostalgia and memories of my youth: it made me feel quite hungry. That wafting fragrance of freshly baked bread filled the kitchen. In a Scottish crofter's home there is usually a kettle by the fire that is never far from the boil. Margaret made a fresh pot of tea and offered me some of her warm freshly baked scones and home made butter.

I drove back down to the village and after making inquiries I went to see Archie Corbett, his son Hamish had been in my class at school, who is now 83 and living in Main Street. I talked to him about the racist abuse that had been meted out to me as a boy and tried to establish how he was able to justify such behaviour. He made excuses.I think he was very embarrassed that I had the courage to bring up such a subject. However he did apologise and show some remorse whilst explaining that such behaviour was unlikely to happen today as there were both Indian and Chinese families living in the area and running local businesses.

I discovered that the Lairg "Over 35" football team was playing Embo at Bridgend. As my bed and breakfast accommodation was at Bridgend I went over there and checked into the guesthouse in the late afternoon. I then went to watch the beginning of the game. There I met Marian, Angy Saval's daughter. I don't have a keen interest in football but I spent a short while watching the men on the pitch and chatting with her.

There was always a restaurant in the centre of the village. This changed its name and owner since I remember the place. It is now called the Nipin Restaurant and I found the food to be satisfactory but they have a rip-off minimum charge of £15 for a Visa card transaction. With my belly full I left the restaurant and went for a drive in the gloaming. There was a beautiful sunset but unfortunately I did not have my camera in the car so rather than miss it I drove round by Culbuie and was amazed by the wonders of nature. I went back to my B&B and picked up my camera in time to catch the final rays of the orange sun reflected on Loch Shin.

I drove out to the edge of Shinness before returning and spending a couple of hours in the Grange bar in Lochside. There I met Alec McKenzie, Jimmy McKenzie (Clunal) and a few other people. I took a photograph of the football team, they won thier match this afternoon 2 - 1.

I left these guys in high spirits. I had had a very enjoyable day and at 11 o'clock I drove back to my room.

Sunday 13^th August

I woke up at 0800 and had breakfast. I went back to bed slept until 11 o'clock as I was feeling very lethargic. At noon I went into Lairg and took a drive around. My first stop was at Joan Leeds. She has never married and was very sympathetic, concerned that it had happened and apparently understanding when I explained to her how I had felt with my mistreatment at school.

I expected this to be my last visit to Lairg. I'd explain to her that I wanted to meet as many people as were available in order to find out why I had been so badly mistreated. Joan is an intelligent woman and understood that it would be very confrontational and that most people would balk at discussing an issue. I agreed that this was likely and that it was a long time in the past but nevertheless it was something that I felt I had a right to explore whilst there were still a few people alive who were responsible for the abusive and racial behaviour meted out by both them and their children.

I wanted to visit Wilma MacLeod, who was about seven or eight years older than myself, at Broomhill but she wasn't at home. I drove up past Lairg Muir and knocked on the door of Charles Gray, Culmailie, he has his younger brother Paul and his wife staying up there for a week at the moment. Charles has never married and doesn't expect that he ever will. Next stop was David Sutherland of Balharn. I met his wife for the first time.he was several years younger than I and it was his older brothers Alistair and Andrew home I'd really wanted to talk to but unfortunately neither of the twins were available.

Carrying on down the road I stopped at Callum Ross's for a chat with him. I went down to Ballone where I met old Nan Ross whowas born five years before my mother and is now 84 years of age. I sat in the car and she stood at the farm gate for 20 minutes. I spoke to her too about my childhood and she expressed regret that it had ever been allowed to happen. She had no children of her own and was in no way responsible. She had always been a good friend to our family and quite often on a Sunday afternoon our grandmother would take us for a walk up to visit Nan. She never invited me into the house.

Leaving Nan at her gate I went to see if Sandy Allison was at home. He is nowNan's nearest neighbour, living in the house where we went to visit Granny Snoddy. I knocked and took a look around the steading but there was no sign of him so I drove down to what used to be Moody's piggery.

My first job after leaving school had been here working with the swine. I found he was just returning from church with a bible under his arm. He introduced me to his wife, this is a second marriage, and we chatted about the old times when we worked together on the pig farm. He reminded me of the day that I came in with an almost new Jerkin type jacket and while we were cleaning out the pigsty's I'd left it hanging on a post. When I got back to the jacket there was nothing but a sleeve left. The pigs had eaten the rest. He is a couple of years older than me and he is looking very well for this age.

From here I drove off to the Bridgend stores to buy some Rizzla paper as I was in need of a spliff by now. On my return I drove up through Tomich and Reanbrek to see if Sandy Anderson was at home. It turned out that he too was someonesomewhere else so I drove on and eventually drove up the hill to Iain Alister's. He used to be the butcher in Lairg and is now 77 years of age. Tall slim and looking, quite fit he’s hale 'n healthy as they say and very hearty for his age. I took some pictures of Ivy cottage from the main road as I drove back into the village.

My friend Angy MacDonald had come out of hospital today, he'd been drying out in Golspie as he is an alcoholic. He was in when I got to his house in Lochside. Angy used to be like a schoolboy Shepherd. This family run a large flock of sheep and he used to control them with the sheepdogs and always carried a crook when he wasn't at school. He was never at school on the day of the sheep land sale. He told me his wife died three years previously and he felt a very lonely man. He now works doing private gardens especially mowing the lawns. He used to be the handyman at the Sutherland Arms and told me about the last owners having been some sort of criminals from Glasgow who ransacked the place despoiling most of its originality. He thinks it was sold for for about £150,000 but it needs to have about £2 million spent on it before it can be reopened.

I had dinner in the Grange, chicken Korma and rice but it was all very bland. I was talking to a young guy in there whom I'd seen last night. He had wanted to swap shirts with me as he liked the shirt I bought in New York. When I met him this evening he again told me he liked my shirt very much and offered to swap. I told him okay I was ready and to get his shirt off but he changed his mind. I believe his name was Don so I bought him a Lager and after chatting to him for a while I left to come back to my room. I watched Prime Suspect and the evening News before sorting out my photographs and bring my diary up-to-date. I have had difficulty sleeping last few nights. I have been waking up many times during the night so I'm not very anxious to go to sleep until I am tired.

Monday 14^th August
I left after breakfast in the Main Street I found Andrew Sutherland, Balharn, talking to his brother David and his wife outside the Nipin restaurant so I had chat with him. He had little to say when I questioned him about my treatment as a schoolboy. He had been a year old than I and as I remember he wasn't involved in any of the bullying or racial abuse that took place. I think his parents were too strict and religious for him to have behaved badly. After that I saw Elisabeth Ross who is now 66years of age and her 65 year old brother William who followed his father's trade as a cobbler. They lived next door to our house in the village and would serve in their father's, 'Willie the Shoemaker's' shop as it was known.

Meeting then reminded me of the days when I was poverty stricken and aged around 14 years. Many shops in those days had a bell at the top of the door which would be triggered by a mechanical action of the door opening. When I became tall enough to reach the top of the door, I would put my hand up as the door opened to prevent the bell from ringingas I entered the shop. They kept the takings in an old-fashioned drawer with several wooden bowls carved for the different coinage. After entering the shop I would quietly open the drawer and take a few coins, then close the door and call out, "Is there anyone there?" Usually it would be Elizabeth or her brother who would come to the shop and I would enquire for something that they were unlikely to have or perhaps buy a pair of shoelaces with some of the money that I had just pilfered.

On leaving the couple, neither of whom had married, I drove up the street and went to see if Lane Dunbar was home. Over the weekend I had called four times as I was anxious to see her again but on each occasion I found no one at her home. Lane had been a popular woman in her day and there was usually people having drinks at her house on a Friday or Saturday night. She had married a Polish man and her daughter Irene Cnota had been my wife's bridesmaid of honour at our wedding. This time, on my fifth attempt, I was lucky and I spent an hour chatting to her. Katrina, her youngest girl who is deaf and almost dumb came round while I was there. She must have been ten years of age when I last saw her and she recognised me instantly. I showed Lane the two photographs of my wedding and she was delighted to refresh her memory. She is 86 years of age and has had a lot of age related problems though she gets around fine and is looking well. After my enjoyable chat and refreshments with Lane I went up to

seek some wildlife on my journey out of the village.

It was quite windy and I encountered some sheep grazing on the hillside.

I was fortunate enough to come across this magnificent specimen within range of my telephoto lens

the nearby village of Shinness to see Hubert Corbett at his pottery. He is two years older than myself, he is 58 now and has done very well for himself. He owns two holiday houses and the hairdressers in the Main Street as well as the family home from where he runs the Sutherland Pottery business. He introduced me to his wife Rachel who gave me some of her Highland hospitality, home made scones and tea. He makes all his own pottery and it looks very good. He showed me the photo of the 1993 school reunion, I took my camera to make a copy and he wrote the names of the subjects on a photostat of it for me. Before I left I went out to his workshop where I bought a £29.50 clock with the pendulum that I still have hanging on my wall today, August 2009 and it keeps good time. He offered to give me something as a keepsake and picked up a penholder he had made. He asked me if I would like that and I told him I would prefer an ashtray, as it would be more useful to me. We selected a small dish that matched the clock and I use that on my desk here. I took my leave when he had wrapped the items.

School reunion picture taken in 1993.
Back Row:
Ali Matheson, Hubert Corbet, Duncan Matheson, David Snoddy, Robert Mackay, Jimmy Ross, Duncan hidden, Sandy Anderson, Robin Ross, Charles Gray, Sandy Allison, George Mackay, Stewart Mackay (Sallachy)
Front row:
Lyn Sutherland, Allison Macleod, Jeanette Macleod, Anita Macleod, Jenny Ross, Ann Munro, Jean Hardy.

All of the above were older than me and none in my class at school.

Shags stnd proudly on the hilside beside a loch

The north west highlands ar ebleak and beautiful with lochs and gullys created by glaciers of a bygone age.

Back into Lairg, I drove, taking a few photos and called into the school where I asked if they had any photographs of the classes over the years. I was advised that none existed. I asked if they had school registered I could look at to find out exactly who had been in my class. It turned out that the only register available was one containing the initial admissions rather than the classes, as they were compiled each year.

The Secretary kindly photostatted the four relevant pages for me. Afterwards I inspected the school, the long corridor with the main classrooms on one side and the science lab, cloakroom and toilets on the other. After leaving the school I took a last drive around Lairg before heading south toward Bonar Bridge at 1700.

I passed though the countryside passing lochs and hilla.

I wasn't sure which counties I was going to pass through, whether I was going to go over to Skye or down to Fort William but I came over the Struie then up through Dingwall before I decided to head for Drumnadrochit. Just outside Dingwall I picked up a young lad from Czechoslovakia, a hitchhiker, who told me he was going to Skye. He was a very nice guy and we spoke of his journey and his experiences of Scotland, which he was enjoying greatly. I had hoped that he might be interested in some hanky-panky but I discovered through our conversation that he had no interest in anything other than girls. Had he expressed any willingness I'm sure I would have taken him all the way to Skye. I decided that I wouldn't bother going across to the island myself and so I dropped him off at the junction with the Skye Road just outside Drumnadrochit.

Eilean Donan castle is build on an island between 3 Lochs: Loch Long, Loch Alsh and Loch Duich.

. It was after 1900 when I arrived in Fort William and found that the town was very busy and I tried several bed and breakfast houses before I found a vacancy for a single guy. It was £20 and I was told that if I was not in by midnight I would be locked out.

I went to the town where I had dinner, it was a little bit over expensive for Fort William but it was one of the best restaurants in town. Back in my hotel I saw the final part of Prime Suspect, dealt with my photographs of the day and eventually went to sleep around 0100.

I stopped at Callander for some lunch and went up to Invertrossachs House, which a friend Iain Aitchison, a Glaswegian, used to own to see what it was like. It is deep into the countryside being six miles from Callander on a single -track road most of it through the Invertrossachs private estate. I telephoned ahead to see if I could contact Jack from Falkirk as I wanted to stay with him. I drove around Stirling, took a couple of pictures of the Wallace Monument and then headed south of Falkirk where I arrived around 1700.

Having had no reply from the messages that I left for Jack I booked into a bed and breakfast for £25 as the tourist information officer had hardly anything left. I was eating in the town centre when I eventually was able to contact Jack. He joined me as I finished my meal and we went to his house after I parked my car back the guest house. It turned out that Jack knew my landlady, Francesca Stewart, as his sister too does bed and breakfast. Small world. We went to Jack's where we drank wine and eventually went to bed after midnight. Jack was a very good lover and thoroughly versatile. We had an excellent long lovemaking session which lasted over two hours. I had been longing to have some sexual excitement for days now. Eventually I dropped off to sleep at around 0300 but was awake with pain my chest at 0415.

The pain was right across my sternum from right to left nipple, intense and somewhat excruciating. I tried drinking water but this had little effect and it was some time before I was able to get back to sleep. The only comfortable position I could find was lying on my belly. When I awoke in the morning I found Jack was sucking on my dick. I laid back and enjoyed the ministrations of his tongue for a while but did not come off. He drove me back to my bed and breakfast house at 0845.

I took a slow drive up the A9 looking at the scenery.

When I arrived at Dunblane I telephoned to Iain to let him know that I was on my way. He told me to come straight over and I arrived just after 1230. Spent the afternoon chatted to him and Simon for a while.

In the evening Simon was working at a restuarantrestaurant job so Iain and me went out with his friend Gavin where I bought a meal for us. £55. My chest had been sore all day long with a dull ache and quite intensely when I drank liquid or ate any food. He and told me that he had suffered from a similar distressing complaint from time to time and it had returned to the a few days ago but he put it down to some new medicine he was taking. I ordered turned out to be beautiful piece of roast lamb and vegetables but due to be excruciating pain I was only able to eat have of it. Iain also had trouble with the similar pain and was hardly able to touch his food.

When we came back we sat chatting for ages as Simon had come in and joined us. I went to bed and left them all sitting downstairs as I was very tired and wanted to do some work on my computer. It was all of 0300 when I went to sleep.

During the afternoon I took two applications of the medicine, it had little or no effect and at 1630 I went to the doctor. The doctor turned out to be a very nice young gentleman called Dr Mathies
on he prescribed a course of Parriet. He explained to me that gases which were acidic were passing a passed a muscle behind my breastbone from my stomach. These acids had inflamed the muscle and this is what was causing made pain. He told me that the Gaviscon being a thick liquid flowed down the oesophagus and coated the muscle thereby protecting it and giving it a chance to heal. He told me this would wear off in the long term but that the medicine should reduce the pain within 24 hours and prevent any further formation of gases thereby allowing the muscle to recover and be able to contract in the normal fashion.

Iain drove down to the local fish and chip shop at Bridge of Allan where he bought haddock and chips for both of us. We had previously discussed what to do for dinner as it seemed rather stupid to spend money in a restaurant on food that we would probably not be able to eat.

Back at the house we had a quiet evening which was spent mainly chatting about credit cards, hotels, businesses and the rules and regulations that I was likely to encounter as I continued to travel to hotels and bed and breakfast's around the world. In it was after three o'clock when I went to the bedroom and by the time I did my diary it was nearer to four.