Not Not While the Giro

by Kelman, James

  Since I shall have nothing to look forwards to on Saturday mornings I must reach a state of neither up nor down. Always the same. That will be miserable I presume but considering my heart’s desire is to be miserable then with uncashed giros reaching for the ceiling I can be indefinitely miserable. Total misery. However, to retain misery I may be obliged to get out and about in order not to be always miserable since – or should I say pleasure is imperative if perfect misery is the goal; and, therefore, a basic condition of my perpetual misery is the occasional jaunt abroad in quest of joy. Now we’re getting somewhere Sir Smith, arise and get your purple sash. And since ambling round pubs only depresses me I must seek out other means of entertainment or henceforth desist this description of myself as wretch. And setbacks and kicksintheteeth are out of the question. Masochism then. Is this what

  Obviously I am just in the middle of a nervous breakdown, even saying it I mean that alone

  But for christ sake saving a year’s uncashed giros is impossible because the bastards render them uncashable after a 6 month interval.

  Walking from Land’s End to John O’Groats would be ideal in fact because for one thing it would tax my resistance to the utmost. Slogging on day in day out. Have to be during the summer. I dislike the cold water and I would be stopping off for a swim. Yet this not knowing how long it takes the average walker . . . well, why worry, time is of no concern. Or perhaps it should be. I could try for the record. After the second attempt possibly. Once I had my bearings. Not at all. I would amble. And with pendants and flags attached to the suitcase I could beg my grub & tobacco. The minimum money required. Neither broo nor social security. The self sufficiency of the sweetly self employed. I could be for the rest of my life. The Land’s End to John O’Groats man. That would be my title. My id a byword, although anonymity would be the thing to aim for. Jesus it could be good. And far from impossible. I have often hitched about the place. Many times. But hitching must be banned otherwise I shall be saving time which is of course an absurdity – pointless to hitch. And yet what difference will it make if I do save time because it can make no difference anyway. None whatsoever. Not at all. And if it takes 6 weeks a trip and the same back up I could average 4 return trips a year. If I am halfway through life just now ie. a hundred and twenty return trips then in another hundred and twenty trips I would be dead. I can mark off each trip on milestones north & south. And when the media get a grip of me I can simply say I’ll be calling a halt in 80 trips time. And I speak of returns. That would be twenty years hence by which time I would have become accustomed to fame. Although I could have fallen down dead by then through fatigue or something. Hail rain shine. The dead of winter would be a challenge and could force me into shelter unless I acquire a passport and head out to sunnier climes, Australia for example to stave off the language barriers yet speech need be no problem since communication will be the major lack as intention perhaps. No, impossible. I cannot leave The Great British Shores. Comes to that I cannot leave the Scottish ones either. Yes, aye, Scotland is ideal. Straight round the Scottish Coast from the foot of Galloway right round to Berwick although Ayrshire is a worry its being a very boring coastline. But boredom is out of the question. Ayrshire will not be denied. So each return trip might involve say a four month slog if keeping rigidly to the coast on all minor roads particularly when you consider Kintyre – or Morven by fuck and even I suppose Galloway itself to some extent. But that kind of thing is easily resolved. I dont have to restrict myself to mapped out routes from which the slightest deviation is frowned upon. On the contrary, that last minute decision at the country crossroads can only enhance the affair. And certain items of clothing are already marked out as essential items. The stout boots and gnarled staff to ward off country animals after dusk. A hat & coat for wet weather. The Imitation Crombie may suffice. Though an anorak to cover the knees would probably reap dividends. And after a few return trips – and being a circular route no such thing as a return would exist ie. I would be travelling on an arc – the farmfolk and country dwellers would know me well, the goodwives leaving thick winter woollies by the side of the road, flasks of oxtail soup under hedges. Shepherds offering shelter in remote bothies by the blazing log fires sipping hot toddies for the wildest nights and plenty of tobacco always the one essential luxury, and the children up and down the land crying, Mummy here comes the Scottish Coastroad Walker while I would dispense the homespun philosophies of the daisy growing and the planet as it revolves etc. A stray dog joining me having tagged along for a trip at a safe distance behind me I at last turn and at my first grunt of encouragement it comes bounding joyfully forwards to shower me in wet noses and barked assurances to stick by me through thick & thin and to eternally guard my last lowly grave when I have at length fallen in midstride plumb tuckered out after many years viz 12 round trips at two years a trip. Yet it might be shorter than that. While the hot days in central summer are the busloads of tourists arriving to see me, pointed out by their driver, the Legend of the North, the solitary trudging humpbacked figure with dog & gnarled staff just vanishing out of sight into the mist, Dont give him money Your Lordship you’ll just hurt his feelings. Just a bit of your cheese piece and a saucer of milk for the whelp. Group photographs with me peering suspiciously at the camera from behind shoulders at the back or in the immediate foreground perhaps, It is rumoured the man was a Captain of Industry Your Grace, been right round the Scottish Coastroad 28 times and known from Galloway to Berwick as a friend to Everyone. Yes, just a pinch of your snuff and a packet of cigarette-papers for chewing purposes only. No sextants or compasses or any of that kind of shite but

  ENDNOTES

  1. To be ‘corrie-fistit’ in certain parts of Scotland, is to be left handed – even in the present day.

  2. This account has been taken more or less verbatim from a pamphlet entitled Within Our City Slums; it belongs to the chapter headed ‘Curious practices of the Glaswegian’. The pamphlet was published in 1932 but is still available in a few 2nd hand bookshops in the south of England.