The Queen Alexandra, launched in 1902, had an even shorter career on the Firth. Badly damaged by fire at Greenock in 1912 she was repaired — but then sold to owners in Vancouver, which she reached by sailing round Cape Horn because, of course, the Panama Canal was still under construction! She was replaced by a new vessel of the same name which distinguished herself by ramming and sinking a submarine in the Channel in World War I and later by emerging from a refit in 1935 as MacBrayne’s three funnelled St Columba.
A ‘McCallum’ was a popular West of Scotland courting delicacy for many decades and consisted of a sundae-glass of vanilla ice-cream smothered in raspberry syrup. Just who invented it, and who gave it the name, and why, can still be the subject of debate among enthusiasts!
THE HIGHLAND GATEWAY — Only Rothesay pier was ever as busy as Dunoon. The Cowal pier is seen here at the height of its dominance as the ‘Gateway to the Highlands’ as well as an important destination in its own right. Here the paths of the North British steamers from their Craigendoran base criss-crossed (among others) those of the Caledonian Railway Company and MacBrayne, from Gourock, and of Captain Buchanan, from Glasgow. In this photograph, Eagle III to the left and, ahead of her, the first Lord of the Isles.
27
Going off the Rails
Once her cargo of pit-props had been unloaded at Ardrossan harbour, the Captain of the Vital Spark went off as usual to the Post Office to wire back to the Glasgow office for news about their next assignment. The crew relaxed on deck in the early May sunshine, the mate perusing a copy of the previous week’s People’s Friend, Macphail poring over a new novelle.
Sunny Jim sat idly on the hatch coaming with a piece of tarry string with which he played cat’s cradle while humming a tuneless, wordless song to the eventual, inevitable irritation of the other two.
Before too many harsh words could be said, fortunately, Para Handy was seen coming back down the quayside towards the puffer with the usual yellow telegram in his hands, and speculation replaced altercation on deck.
“Knowin’ oor luck,” said Macphail, “the office’ll be sendin’ us tae Glenarm for lime.” That Northern Ireland port, serving a nearby limestone quarry, was the crew’s most hated destination of all, for working that particular cargo was an especially foul job. “Whit Macfarlane has done tae offend them a’ up at the Gleska office I dinna ken,” continued the engineer: “but if there’s ever ony dirty work tae be done it’s aye the Vital Spark that gets tae dae it!
“I doot it’s that, or even worse, by the look of the man,” he concluded. And sure enough there was a puzzled frown on Para Handy’s face as he jumped down onto the deck.
“Don’t tell us it’s Glenarm again,” said Dougie disgustedly. Para Handy shook his head.
“Whateffer it iss, it’s a misprint,” he said. “There hass been some sort of a stoorie on the telegraph line and the message hass come oot wrong at this end. Listen to this, lads, and see if you can mak’ ony sense of it. ‘Rendezvous with puffer Saxon at Bowling and proceed together to Bridge Wharf to load cargo of trams for Rothesay.’ Trams? Trams?? Whit are they on aboot?”
“It should maybe be Drams, Captain,” suggested Sunny Jim with some enthusiasm. “We’re tae tak’ a cargo o’ whusky for the Rothesay Inns maybe?”
“Naw, Jum,” said the Mate. “They aalways get their supplies wi’ the Texa effery second Thursday. And even at the Fair Fortnight you wudna need a pair o’ puffers tae tak’ the necessary supplies for the visiting Glaswegians doon tae Bute.
“Could it no’ be Rams they mean, Peter? Or Lambs maybe? For there’s a wheen sheep on the island already.”
“Aye Dougie,” said the Captain, “but they’re usually bein’ sent oot, no’ brocht in! It’s beyond me. Prams? — there’s no that mony weans in Bute. Hams? — they cure their ain.
“Cot knows whit it iss — but there’s only wan way to find oot! Mr Macphail! If you can get your lang face oot o’ that trash and get some steam up, we can maybe get awa’ tae Bowling and see if Wullie Jardine on the Saxon kens ony mair aboot this than we do!”
The two puffers met up at Bowling harbour the following morning when the Saxon came in from completing a run up the Forth and Clyde Canal to Grangemouth, collecting timber which she had then delivered to McGregor’s yard at Kirkintilloch.
“It’s gobbledegook tae me tae, Peter,” volunteered Jardine when the two Captains met. “We’d best get up there and fin’ oot the worst. Ah wush Ah cud think whit way they’re wantin’ the twa boats thegither: that’s the real mystery.”
They found out soon enough.
Standing on the quayside at Bridge Wharf there were indeed two trams: two of the newly perfected electrical variety: and their destination was indeed to be Bute, as replacements on the 20-year-old Rothesay to Port Bannatyne tramway for the smaller horse-drawn vehicles which had served it till now.
The only means of getting them to their destination was by the use of a pair of puffers, lashed together to form a broad square platform onto which the two trams could then be lowered gently by crane, laid transversely across the cargo hatchways of the boats, and secured with wire hawsers and ropes to cleats and eye-bolts on the decks and gunwales.
The delicate operation took the most of the day to complete and the two crews went ashore in the late afternoon for a badly needed refreshment at the Auld Toll Vaults.
Para Handy and Jardine looked back at the strange silhouette at the quayside.
“Skoosh-caurs!” exclaimed Para Handy. “Skoosh-caurs! I do not believe it, Wullie, I neffer, neffer in aal my born days thocht to see the smertest boat in the coasting tred (no offence meant Wullie, you understand) aal higgledy-piggledy wi’ a cargo the like of yon. It looks chust like a tinker’s flittin’, it iss makin’ a fool o’ the shup!”
He changed his mind half-an-hour later when a raincoated figure with a snap-brim hat put a head round the doorway of the snug at the Auld Toll to enquire: “Is there a Captain MacFarlane here?”
“Aye, that’s me,” said Para Handy.
“Ah, Captain: my name is Farquharson. I’m a reporter from the Glasgow News. Your friend Mr Neil Munro sent me to see you, he thought I might find you here. You see we would like to write a piece about you — and about you too of course, Captain Jardine,” he added hastily as Wullie swung round to give him a long hard look, “since you’re both in the news, as it were, on account of the cargo you’re taking down to Rothesay. The first of the new electric trams for the island! The first cargo of its kind ever on the Clyde, and carried by steam lighters! Our readers will be very interested to read all about it in tomorrow morning’s paper.”
Para Handy positively swelled with pride. “In the news, eh? Well, what else wud you expect when dealing wi’ the smertest …” Tactfully realising, just in time, that that particular line of thought was best left unspoken, he said no more.
“Well, well,” he smiled, “please sit doon and mak’ yoursel’ at hame, Mr Farquharson, and speir awa’. Jum! give the chentleman that seat, and get a stool for yoursel’.
“I am chust sorry I cannot offer you a refreshment, but we only came in for the wan wee gless of sherbet to clear oor throats and my money iss aal on the shup.”
The reporter, well forewarned by Neil Munro, took the hint with no further prompting.
Sunny Jim was sent ashore first thing next day to buy a copy of the paper before the strange hybrid creation set off on its journey down the Firth.
There was a long article on page two of the News congratulating the Directors of the Rothesay Tramway Company on their ‘brave investment in the remarkable new technology which would shortly revolutionise transport on both land and sea’, as the writer put it: and complementing the shippers on their ingenuity in creating ‘the first set of nautical Siamese Twins ever to have been seen on the Firth’ to accomplish the task of transporting the cargo safe to its destination.
Only Macphail remained jaundiced about the whole enterprise and scathingly critical of th
e indignities heaped on the puffer.
“It’s just a shambles!” he protested. “Wud ye tak’ a look at whit we look like for peety’s sake! Jist a broken-doon penny ride frae Hengler’s Circus and Carnival, jist makin’ a richt bauchle o’ the boat.”
Para Handy, on the other hand, once he had had the chance to study the piece in search of any hidden, unflattering innuendos (explaining to the mystified Sunny Jim, in the meantime, just what was meant by the allusion to Siamese Twins) and finding none that he could see, was quite delighted by the notice (or notoriety) which was, at last, attaching to his command — even if he had to share the glory with Wullie Jardine.
It was as well that the Captain of the Saxon was an old friend, for the actual passage down-river was fraught with considerable difficulty, and demanded considerable tact on the part of both Captains and both crews.
Which skipper was to be in overall command?
Which engineer and which set of engines was to dictate the speed at which the floating tangle of glass and steel should be progressed?
Which helmsman was to establish the headings to be steered, and how — when neither wheelhouse gave a view of anything other than the side of a tramcar three feet in front?
Para Handy was just about to broach these delicate questions with Wullie Jardine when the latter, following an earnest discussion with his engineer in the wheelhouse, approached the Captain of the Vital Spark with the unexpectedly generous suggestion that Para Handy, as the more experienced man, should have overall charge: that Macphail, as a former deep-sea engineer, should set the pace for the voyage: and that Dougie, being taller than the mate of the Saxon and therefore better able to see where they were all heading, should be navigator-in-chief.
“My Chove, that’s very gracious of you, Wullie,” said Para Handy, and the two shook hands on the agreement, and gave orders for the lines to be cast off.
The twin-decked carrier moved slowly into the middle of the river.
The twin-decked carrier continued to move slowly, very slowly indeed, all the way down the Firth.
“I neffer thought it wud tak’ so long,” said Para Handy with some exasperation as at last they came abreast of Toward Point and within sight of their destination. “The Saxon chust iss not in the same class ass we are for speed. I shall neffer, neffer be rude to Dan aboot the enchines again!”
The Directors of the Tramway Company, together with all the great and the good of Bute, were awaiting their arrival at Rothesay and for the first time in her long career the Vital Spark (and of course the Saxon) came alongside a flag-bedecked jetty to the cheers of a large crowd.
“My Chove, Wullie,” said Para Handy an hour later, as they sat in the bar of the Commercial Hotel, “I thocht we wass neffer goin’ to get here. I chust hope we can make better progress back up river to Gleska!”
“I wudna bet on that, Peter,” said Jardine guiltily. “Ye see, ye’ll hae tae gi’e us a piggie-back again.”
“A piggie-back? Again? Whit are you on aboot?”
“Well, it’s like this. We cracked wir biler this mornin’ jist as we were gettin’ steam up at Bridge Wharf and had tae shut it doon. That’s what the ingineer wis tellin’ me aboot in the wheelhoose. But I wisnae goin’ to miss the spree and the glory of it a’ so I kept ma peace! The Vital Spark wis the only shup wi’ ony power on the way doon river, and I’d be obleeged if ye’d just keep us lashed by ye for the trup back hame.
“We’d baith look awfu’ schoopit if this got intae the papers Peter, wudn’t we?”
FACTNOTE
The Bute Tramway was in existence for more than half-a-century, the first two miles of track being opened in 1882 between Rothesay and Port Bannatyne. For the first 20 years of its operations the service was provided by horse-drawn vehicles which took about an hour on the round trip. Though the initial impetus for its construction came from its role as a tourist attraction (Rothesay was then just about to enter its zenith years as the number one tourism mecca on the Firth) the service ran year round.
In due course, the winter operations were being provided by specially constructed enclosed vehicles, whereas the summer service (somewhat optimistically!) was always maintained by open-top carriages.
In 1902, the service was electrified. This involved closing it down completely for a few months to allow the necessary conversion to be carried out, before the new tramway opened for business in May of that year. Some three-quarters of a million passengers were carried annually at its peak, and there were 22 trams in service.
In 1905, following years of planning and discussion, the line was extended to provide a summer season service to the fine sands of Ettrick Bay on the south side of the island and though there was occasional talk of further extensions, none actually came to reality.
The tramway finally closed down in 1936, the victim of the expansion of more comfortable and reliable coach and charabanc service.
Most of the vehicles for the Rothesay tramway were indeed brought to Bute by pairs of puffers or lighters lashed together to provide the necessary beam, this being the most practical and above all the most economical way of transporting such a bulky and awkward cargo.
The limestone cargoes referred to earlier were confirmed by most puffer crews as their real bete-noir. The loading and unloading process kicked up a positive stour of clinging dust which got into clothes, hair, lungs, and pervaded every nook and cranny aboard the boats.
By comparison, carrying a couple of tramcars down river really must have seemed like a relaxing holiday — especially since it would not have involved any backbreaking work with the steam winch or the shovel!
ROTHESAY TRAM TERMINUS — Here is the town terminus for the Bute Tramways at Guildford Square, Rothesay, with one of the new electric vehicles loading holidaymakers for Port Bannatyne and Ettrick Bay. To the left lies the inner harbour, destination and berthing place for the numerous puffers which served the island community, but it was unfortunately empty of shipping the day this photograph was taken.
28
The Cargo of Cement
Sunny Jim had been sent up on deck to bring back a report about the weather as soon as the battered old alarm clock (the only item of any ornamental pretension in the fo’c’sle) had gone off as usual at seven o’clock.
“Sorry boys,” he said as he returned. “It’s rainin’ as hard as ever, and no sign of a break in the sky at all.”
The Vital Spark had lain at Berry’s Pier on Loch Striven for four days now and, though the month was May, the rain had been unrelenting for nearly 96 solid hours. The tops of the hills in Cowal to the north and on the Kyles to the south were embedded head first, as it were, in the base of low grey clouds which pressed down to within a few hundred feet of the surface of the loch.
“Still rainin’ on!” complained Para Handy, swinging his feet out of his bunk and reaching for his shirt. “I have neffer known weather like it and I am fair at the end of my tether wi’ it aal.
“I shall go and talk to the builders again. We cannot lie here for effer and a day. What the owner must be thinkin’ I hate to imachine. With there bein’ no telephone in the big hoose for us to get a message to him, he’ll be thinkin’ that we iss aal lost at sea, and his shup wi’ us!”
Their enforced idleness had been caused by a combination of the constant rain, the nature of their cargo — and a very cautious clerk-of-works. The ‘big house’ at Glenstriven was in process of having some amenities added before the annual summer visit of its owners, a Glasgow merchant and his family.
Chief amongst these was the building of a large new boathouse beside the pier which served the estate: and the construction of a substantial flagstoned terrace at the front of the house, as a necessary adjunct to the quite unheard-of extravagance of the small outdoor swimming pool which had been installed there only the previous year.
The paving stones, bricks, tiles and miscellaneous items of hardware for these works had been delivered by the puffer the previous Thursday — together wi
th the building squad, who had spent the weekend carting sand and pebbles from the nearby beaches to the site of operations. On Monday, the puffer had returned from the Broomielaw with the last and most important ingredient in the recipe — the bags of the cement itself.
And that, so far as the supervising agent of the contract was concerned, was the problem.
Cement.
Despite the skipper’s assurances that they had trans-shipped such a cargo successfully many times in the past and that the specially-treated bags were rain-proof, the clerk-of-works, terrified of the effects of such an unending downpour on his precious cement, had refused point-blank to countenance its unloading till the rain had stopped. That was Monday. And today was Friday.
Thus the hatch on the puffer’s hold was undisturbed. The heavy tarpaulin across it was still fastened down tightly, and the bag of rope netting which would transfer the cargo to a waiting horse and cart on the pier hung idle from the derrick.
On the puffer, the crew sat fuming in the fo’c’sle and getting ever more short-tempered with each other: ashore, the builders huddled under the leaking canvas roof of their ramshackle bothy and wished they were back in Glasgow.
And both sets of disgruntled and frustrated men individually and collectively cursed the clerk-of-works — who was himself safely ensconced in the considerable comfort of the staff wing at the big house, courtesy of the estate factor, though to the dismay of the domestic staff who were expected to look after his needs.
“He still insists that the bags would chust turn ass solid ass a rock,” Para Handy protested as he climbed back down into the fo’c’sle and hung his dipping oilskins over a line stretched across the deck-beams next to the chimney of the iron stove in the forepeak.
“To the duvvle,” said Macphail with feeling. “Is your word no’ good enough for the man, Peter?”
“He wuddna’ believe it even if it wass written in the Good Book itself,” said the skipper bitterly. “He iss that nervous for his chob. We must chust thole it oot for another day, boys, and see what comes.
Complete New Tales of Para Handy Page 20