by Sam Heughan
It’s time for a practice run. I push on the pedals and immediately stop. I have cycled the length of Britain, all through Ireland, the Outer Hebrides, from Arran to Cape Wrath, and across the Welsh Mountains but this . . . this was like wrestling an old drunk down an alleyway. (Come to think of it, Sam had been on the sauce again last night.) [Sam: Er, and so had you – Mr bottle of Chablis to myself and two double whiskies. On my bill as usual.]
I look behind to check with Sam.
The smirking ginger attempts a look of innocence.
‘Let’s try again,’ he says.
We try again.
The handlebars have a life of their own and I dredge my brain for a reason. Somewhere from the recesses of time I remember a physics lesson talking about loads and weight distribution. I realise that Sam is the weight. He is the load . . .
Third attempt.
This time we get twenty feet before nearly sliding into a ditch.
By this point Sam isn’t even attempting innocence. The bastard is up to something.
We finally get going enough for the camera car to film me complaining vociferously to Sam about yet another attempt to cause me serious injury. It’s only later on I discover (when I watch the footage) that Sam’s feet never make contact with the pedals! Like some deranged, booze-soaked uncle, legs splayed either side, Sam is literally a dead weight at the back. He even has his arms crossed. Piss-taking bastard.
Meanwhile I am straining like a galley slave at the front desperately trying to pedal fast enough so as not to topple over. Finally, on attempt four, we start to get some speed up as Sam begins to join in with the pedalling, but only because he can see we are about to go downhill. Now he’s forcing the pedals round faster than my legs want to go and we are gathering speed at pace. Faster and faster, because he is like a bowling ball of weight at the back and we are getting nearer and nearer the crew car. And now, Mr DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up. With your exhaust pipe.
I squeeze the brakes.
They work!
Sam is indignant.
Sam: Are you braking?
Graham: Yes, I am, because we’re going downhill.
Sam: Don’t brake! Come on! Let’s go!
He pedals even harder like Chris Boardman.
Graham: It’s like being with my seven-year-old! You’re such a tit!
He ignores me and we press on until suddenly, out of nowhere, he decides he’s ‘done’ with the tandem thing. The film crew have what they have. He’s over it. And, without telling me, he drops his feet to the ground, stopping the back of the bike dead and causing the front wheel to almost jack-knife, which very nearly sends me flying over the handlebars. I somehow manage to save myself, sliding off my concrete saddle and castrating myself on the crossbar instead. [Sam: Hmm, I somehow don’t remember this . . .]
Yeeeeooooooooowiiiiiiiiiie!!
I dismount and hobble off, raging at the sky and nature and god, if there is a god, and take my aching walnuts and arse – which feels as though it’s had a week-long visit from ‘Black Jack’ Randall – as far away from Sam as I can.
SAM
Graham never wanted to go behind me because he wanted me to look at his arse. FACT.
Ach, I have never heard a grown man complaining so much. Claiming to have cycled the length of Britain, circumnavigated the globe in a barrel, rowed an entire fleet of Viking longships and climbed Everest dressed as a dwarf, I thought getting Graham on a tandem, before his mid-morning snack, would be relatively easy. He is about as old as the bicycle in question and just as rickety. Point blank refusing to sit behind me – the rear passenger really does get a ‘bum-deal’ – I thought we could at least complete the eighteen miles to Kilchurn Castle, before he demanded a nap, so I agreed to let him steer.
Now, I have no idea of Graham’s manhood, prowess or general condition (although I have heard some peculiar, rather unsettling sounds emitted from his adjacent room at night. A lady friend or the nightly terror of piles? It’s hard to tell . . .) but the tandem bicycle is apparently close to ‘castrating’ him. Anyway, after a great deal of moaning and gasps, he finally manages to get his leg over (clearly never a problem before!) as I sit at the back of the bike to stabilise it. [Graham: Perhaps we should have got an elephant to sit on the back to ‘stabilise’ it still further. At least it might have done some pedalling.]
As soon as his ample arse lands on the ancient leather sprung saddle, I give us a push. ‘Hold On!’ I shout as we swerve all over the place, Graham’s driving a little disturbing. Perhaps he’s forgotten what side of the road we are supposed to be on? He spends a great deal of time swanning around in a posh Porsche in Santa Monica, LA.
‘Nooo, stop pushing! The brakes don’t work!’ he whines. I have actually tested the bike on my own earlier and stopping is not a problem. ‘It’s fine,’ I say, egging him on, hoping the camera crew are recording all of this. The views are splendid – Loch Awe, the mountains and another blue sky – I decide to let McTandem do the work and sit back, legs dangling down, enjoying the scenery. A mile or so later, Graham is panting loudly and has totally run of out steam.
I let him take a little break to get his puff back and, this time with me helping to pedal, we start to get some speed up – fantastic stuff. Round a bend there is a slight downhill stretch which the Grey Dog wants to ‘freewheel’ down (i.e. take a break). I pedal with all my might but he starts braking and calls me a twit. [Graham: A tit.]
We come to a standstill. ‘No, that’s it. I’m exhausted. Bloody bike doesn’t work. I mean, who in their right mind would bring this? It’s rubbish. Utterly useless.’ He is on a rant and we all wait for the steam coming from his ears to subside.
I hide my smile and try not to catch Wendy’s eye and crack up – she’s seen his diva antics on the set of Outlander and it’s the shot in the arm that a tired band of crew and actors need sometimes – the wonderful sight of someone ‘going off the deep end’. We live for the meltdowns because we are all pushed to the point of having the odd moment from tiredness and a relentless filming schedule. Wendy and the camera team give me the thumbs up. We have got what we wanted: Mr Shouty’s comedy gold.
Just then Merlin (the sound guy who gets thrown around by my driving in the back of the camper) decides he needs to get the sound of the bike wheels turning. He jumps on the back of the bike, and using no hands, he pedals away, complete with a sound box and holding the telescopic microphone. And that, Grey Dog, is how it is done.
Graham: These are the ravings of a man on hallucinogenic drugs.
‘The bike seems to work fine, Graham,’ I smirk. But Graham has gone, already snacking on a protein bar in the camper van, grumbling about the pain in his arse. I think he may be finally realising that the pain is in fact me!
Grey Dog’s morale is only restored at the sight of a ‘big breakfast’ burger truck in a layby on the horizon. The grumpy oversized dwarf stiffly marches towards it, still wearing his cycling clips. He orders something large, covered in pastry. Is it lunch? Elevenses? It can’t have been more than an hour and a half since breakfast. He bites hungrily into his beige delight, spraying crumbs. The food trucks in Scotland are not like the ones in America. Or even the rest of the world. There’s no ceviche, fish tacos, pulled pork buns or ubiquitous Corgi truck, the Scottish ones are more basic – think buffet carriage on an InterCity Express train or greasy roadside cafe.
In Seasons One and Two of Outlander there was no proper craft service (the catering department for the cast and crew). In America, the catering is amazing: omelette stations, pizza, candy, latte stalls for Graham and snacks brought all day. However, it’s easy to put on a lot of weight and find yourself struggling to fit into your previously already snug costume! On Outlander, however, the producers thought the crew worked better on less . . . The tradition was that the only snack was at 5pm when a plate of white bread sandwiches would arrive, which had usually been sitting on a table in the rain for a few hours, attacked by the odd hungry lighting g
uy. Only the even less appealing soggy sandwiches would remain.
The other ‘highlight’ was a family-size tin of biscuits, to be shared among the hundred or so crew. Now I’m not saying we expected more or thought ourselves hard done by, but the crew worked long hours, usually outdoors in all conditions. ‘Four seasons in one day’, is the expression used for filming in Scotland, however, in reality it’s mainly winter with a few moments of spring/summer/autumn. Torrential rain, mud and wind were the meteorological backdrop to Season One and during the first week I remember going to get our breakfast from the catering van with Caitriona. It was still dark and windy, with a spattering of rain. Newly arrived from Los Angeles and a former model, I started to think she may not be ready to face a ‘Full Scottish’ of fried eggs, square sausage, bacon, tattie scone (yum!), baked beans, toast and haggis at 5am.
‘Whatyawantin?’ the pasty-white gruff chef barked in his authentic Glaswegian burr.
‘Erm . . . what do you have?’ asked Caitriona, nursing a Styrofoam cup of black thick liquid that bore no resemblance to coffee. It was tepid, rancid but at this hour, on the shore of Loch Long in the pitch dark and rain, we weren’t going to complain to the overworked chef.
He looked at Caitriona in disbelief. Who in their right mind doesn’t know what is on the menu at breakfast!?
‘We got beans, sausage, haggis, bacon, egg . . .’ he was about to reel off the full list of artery-stopping breakfast ingredients.
‘I’ll have an egg,’ Caitriona replied, and I got the feeling she’d rather go hungry but didn’t want to appear ungrateful.
‘Fried, scrambled, hard boiled . . .’ he began again, one hand stirring a pot of thick porridge.
‘Can I have poached?’ Cait enquired.
The chef stopped stirring momentarily, raising his eyebrows and giving his young, slightly spotty teenage apprentice a look.
‘Eeeeh, aye,’ he reluctantly agreed.
‘And do you have any avocado?’ Cait asked hopefully.
There was silence, broken only by the burr of the generator supplying the energy to the bright neon light. The wind swirled and the teenage apprentice turned his back and leaned further into his task of buttering slices of bright white bread.
‘Avowhat?’ The chef finally leaned over the counter to look Caitriona deep in the eyes, leaving his vat of porridge to bubble and spit in disgust.
‘Avocado . . . you know . . . it’s . . .’
‘Oh aye . . . I’ll see what ah can do.’ Without a hint of belief in his voice, the chef turned away and I gave Caitriona a tug.
‘We will get you some,’ I tried to reassure her, not hopeful the chef either knew what it was or could find an avocado at 5am in a layby outside the remote town of Arrocher on the shores of Loch Long. Apparently Cait actually did receive her egg and half an avocado in its skin, and received the same meal for almost a year, not wanting to upset the catering crew or ask for anything different, lest they thought her difficult or struggled to comprehend her.
So the craft services weren’t looking good: Graham was going to go hungry and we were all feeling the brunt of his disdain. Something had to be done, and done it was! After much complaining, a small wet carrier bag from the local Tesco store was produced with an assortment of Kit Kats, Penguin bars and the occasional, supposedly slightly healthier yoghurt-coated muesli bar. This was carried around in the wet jacket pocket of a small, caring, yet sarcastic, ginger-haired Assistant Director. Whenever the time arose, Graham would be fed! However, it would take a few more years before we managed to progress to something slightly healthier and by this point, Graham would be dead.
But he’s still very much alive on Clanlands and now McPasty has refuelled, we need to press on. The clouds are gathering and the sky, like Graham’s testes, is beginning to bruise. On one last ride, with excess calories to draw upon, Graham digs deep and we cycle the couple of hundred yards to the foot of the castle.
GRAHAM
I did indeed stop at the food van. I think I gave them a hurried message written on a torn piece of paper begging for help. Like something smuggled out of Colditz Castle in the war.
The food is surprisingly good. There are only so many protein bars a man can eat (unless they’re Sam), and it gives me a chance for the throbbing in my nether regions to die down. I endure another few miles on the tandem with Sam just before the heavens open upon reaching Kilchurn. Sheltering indoors is our guide, Kenny. The ever-prepared Michelle magics some umbrellas into our hands and we stand outside in the seasonally appropriate dreich Scottish weather bombarding Kenny with questions. At least the rain is too heavy for the midges.
The castle itself is wonderfully dramatic, sitting broodingly at the end of a peninsula. Originally it was on an island and, at its height, must have been a formidable fortress. They knew how to build castles that basically looked like a massive ‘F**K OFF’ to anyone for miles around. Built in the 1440s by Sir Colin Campbell of Glenorchy, you could see from its position it was a powerful stronghold at the head of Loch Awe, the peak of Ben Cruachan visible in the mist.
Sam: I actually shot a commercial here a few months ago and thought it so striking that we had included it in the show . . .
Graham: Whoring yourself again for a few shekels. Were you wearing a kilt touting your Highland haemorrhoid cream?
The lands were originally owned by the MacGregors but were ‘acquired’ by the Campbells of Glenorchy (the same Campbells of Glenorchy whose descendant presided over the massacre at Glencoe). At the end of the sixteenth century the castle was strengthened and improved by the extravagantly named ‘Black Duncan of the Seven Castles’ (7th laird of Glenorchy). I’ve always wondered if he was addressed like this to his face? ‘Excuse me, but can you direct me to where Black Duncan of the Seven Castles lives?’ Did he start out as Black Duncan of the One Castle, and then slowly his name changed as he ‘acquired’ six more? Did his friends call him ‘Duncan’ or perhaps ‘Black D’? Is it a bit like Puff Daddy? [Sam: It’s P. Diddy, granddad!] Did he start as Black Duncan and then just shortened it to B. Duncan? What about his wife? ‘Oh Black Duncan, youse are a one, put down that axe and gi’e us a kiss!’ Was she known as Mrs Black Duncan of the Seven Castles? If only we knew!
I think Black Duncan might be my new name for Duncan Lacroix – ‘I’m off oot cuttin’ aboot the toon, gettin’ tanked up wi Black Duncan – don’t wait up.’
Sam: Black D and Mr McCampy T!
The Campbells famously sided with the Commonwealth in the aftermath of the War of the Three Kingdoms (also known as the British Civil Wars 1639–51, when Charles I famously lost his head). During the Interregnum rule of Oliver Cromwell, who became Lord Protector (1653–58), Kilchurn Castle withstood a two-day siege from General Middleton in 1654 before Cromwell’s forces drove him back. To withstand a two-day siege is no mean feat.
Sir John Campbell of Glenorchy did some more ‘acquiring’ in the late seventeenth century from George Sinclair, Earl of Caithness by foreclosing on his vast debts. That is one of the things we learned more and more about the Campbells as we progressed on this journey. They often didn’t need to resort to violence, as they were very good at getting people indebted to them (like a particularly adept Monopoly player who owns Mayfair and Park Lane with two hotels and sits back smirking while he watches all the other players bankrupt themselves).
On this occasion, though, Sir John combined pecuniary shenanigans with good old-fashioned slaughter. He apparently killed so many Sinclairs in this campaign that the Campbells were able to cross the River Wick without getting their feet wet (it’s not a narrow river . . .). It was this that gave rise to that jaunty pipe tune, ‘The Campbells are Coming’, and I don’t think the ‘coming’ was ever a welcome one. Sir John, not to be outdone by Black Duncan, went by the name of ‘Slippery John’. Again, one wonders if and when this name was ever used.
‘How was Christmas, Slippery John? Slay many men, women, and children? Many evictions?’
Appare
ntly this nomenclature came from being involved with both the Jacobites and the government. Slippery indeed. But it also made him one of the most powerful men in Scotland. Towards the end he lived in Kilchurn and it is his initials along with those of his wife Mary that are carved into the lintel that Sam and I passed beneath to shelter from the rain. He went to his death in 1717 suspected of being a Jacobite, but it was never proved. Slippery to the end.
Kilchurn was eventually converted into a barracks that garrisoned 200 Hanoverian troops during the Jacobite rising of 1745. As we stood in the open courtyard in the rain I imagined the scenes when the Redcoats came to stay. I wonder what Slippery John would have made of it all. No doubt he would have given them cake with one hand, while poisoning their ale with the other.
In commemoration of this visit and the medieval nature of the tandem debacle, Sam will forever become known in my mind as simply . . . ‘Slippery Sam’.
‘Shovellin’ Coal’ by Tony Pranses (It’s about a tandem!)
There are those who think the tandem is the instrument sublime
For the serious cycle-tourist, and the man concerned with time.
It has drive and rolls much faster as it gobbles up the track,
But it’s quite another matter to the guy who sits in back . . . shovellin’ coal.
But just look at the advantages with twice the power at hand,