Neither her Captain nor any of his shipmates have yet featured in the case-lists at any of the District or Sheriff Courts in the West Highlands, nor have their misdeeds been recounted in the columns of the Oban Times, Campbeltown Courier or Argyllshire Standard. But nobody who knows the Vital Spark can be under any mis-apprehension about the nature or purpose of the night-time excursions of her crew when salmon and sea-trout are running in the mouths of the Aray or the Shira, the Ruel or the Eachaig, or any other of a dozen rivers in reach of wherever the puffer happens to be lying overnight.
I previously recounted an earlier incident in which Para Handy was forced to abandon the puffer’s dinghy to the water bailiffs in order to make his escape back to the ship and I am afraid that this was not an isolated occurrence. On two further occasions the Captain has had to make this ultimate sacrifice in order to preserve (at least in official quarters) his own reputation, and that of the Vital Spark as well.
While not exactly condoning the activity which has led to such avoiding action being required, I admit to a certain sneaking sympathy with the Captain, for surely there are more salmon in their waters than the Duke or the Marquess or the Earl and their households could ever consume, and many Scotsmen would regard their freedom to take a stag from the hill or a fish from the river as an inviolable, inherited right.
The whole subject was brought to mind again last month. I was in St Catherines, bound for Inveraray, having come through Cowal on the ‘overland’ route by way of Loch Eck, and had an hour to pass before the next posted passage of the sturdy skiff which provides a periodic ferry service across Loch Fyne to the Campbell capital from that village. A poster advertising a displenishing sale at an adjacent farm caught my eye and when I wandered into the yard where various items for auction were on display, I was surprised to encounter Para Handy himself.
“Boats,” said that mariner in answer to my enquiry as to what he might have his eye on at the sale. “Chust boats. I am afraid we had a bit of a calamity last weekend at Loch Gair, and the shup iss withoot a dinghy again.”
“Not another poaching debacle, Captain!” I exclaimed. “Surely you have learned your lesson on that score by now.”
Para Handy winced.
“I do not like your lenguage, Mr Munro,” he protested, “who said onything aboot poaching? We wass chust looking for a fush for our teas, ass iss the right of any man, when here and does the Asknish gamekeeper and his cronies no’ come burstin’ through the undergrowth and into the shallows, wi’ torches and dugs and cheneral aggravation. There wass nothing else we could do but abandon shup so to speak for the dinghy iss a heavy boat and slow under the oars, and make the best of our way three miles over the hill to Loch Gilp, where we had left the vessel.
“This is the first opportunity that I have had since then to do something aboot replacing the lost boat.”
There was a choice of two small craft lying in the yard — one a heavily built, broad-beamed, flat-bottomed rowing-boat of the traditional type, about 16 feet in length: the other was a very narrow, shallow, delicately-constructed skiff which gave every indication that she would be a very fast boat under oars, light and easily manoeuvrable.
“Not that I in any way approve your nefarious nocturnal doings you must understand, Captain,” I said, pointing towards this craft, “but I would suggest that this is the boat for you. Look at the lines of her! I don’t think any water bailiff would have much chance of catching you in a flier like that!”
Para Handy shook his head sadly.
“I am afraid she chust would not do, Mr Munro,” said he. “You are quite right, of course, she would be chust the chob for the poachin’, but I am afraid that we need a boat on the shup that can do more than chust make a getaway from the gamekeepers of Argyll.
“Blame the owner for that! If he wass using the shup the way she should be used, caairyin’ excursionists or shootin’ perties or nice clean cairgos like whusky or firkins o’ butter aal the time, then it would be a dufferent matter. But wi’ some of the terrible contracts he makes the shup work to, we need a dinghy that can carry a cairgo chust ass readily as it could carry a fushin’ expedition.
“That iss a bonnie wee skiff, sure enough. But she would neffer do for the Vital Spark.”
Ten minutes later, the two boats came up for sale. The skiff went for £4-10s to a sharp-faced man who announced his bids loudly and almost threateningly in the unmistakeable vernacular of the East End of Glasgow. (“A professional!” whispered Para Handy sadly, “That iss the kind of man who iss spoilin’ aal the fushin’s for us amateurs!”) The stout dinghy was knocked down to the Captain for £2-12s, a price with which he seemed quite content.
Since the Vital Spark was berthed at Inveraray (from whence the Captain had come by the same ferry service which I had intended to take in reverse) he would of course row his new acquisition over and, in accepting his invitation to cross with him, I responded by inviting him to join me at the St Catherines Inn for a refreshment before we set off.
“What did you mean a few minutes ago,” I asked as we carried our glasses to a corner table, “when you said the Vital Spark had to have a dinghy that was capable of carrying a cargo? I thought you were always able to beach or berth the puffer for loading or unloading?”
“It iss neffer loading that iss the problem,” said Para Handy, “but there iss times — not many, you understand, but we have to be able to cope wi’ aal emerchencies — there iss times when we have to unload the shup usin’ the dinghy, and a right fouter it is too, ass well ass a beckbreakin’ business.”
And, lifting his dram, he gave me good health in the Gaelic and disposed of the contents in one gulp, optimistically shaking the empty glass upside-down over the tumbler of pale ale with which I had complemented its purchase, lest even one solitary drop of the precious golden liquid should be carelessly lost.
“What sort of cargos are those, then?” I prompted. “I mean the ones that give you the trouble of needing a big dinghy like the one you’ve just bought?”
“It iss not so much the cairgo ass its destination that iss the problem,” replied Para Handy. “For instance, wance a year we have a contract to tak’ the winter coals to a wheen o’ the west coast lighthooses, and there are some of them that have no sort of a jetty at aal, nor any sandy ground where you can beach the shup, and that means that effery drop o’ their coals hass to be manhandled ashore usin’ the dinghy.
“That chob is a richt scunner, I can tell you. No problem at Oban, of course, where we load the coal wi’ a sling: but the coal iss all bagged, no’ loose like the way we usually cairry it, and at lighthooses like Eilean Musdile off the sooth end o’ Lismore, or Rhudagan Gall on Mull, we have to lie off the rocks, load the secks into the dinghy wi’ the winch, row her in to a convenient flet rock — and then unload effery demned seck one by one by hand.
“It iss a nightmare, for we are not funished even then, for the contract iss to deliver the coal to the keeper’s hooses or to the light tower itself. Sometimes, if we are lucky, there iss a sort of a path up to the station and mebbe the keepers will have a barrow or a sort of a truck. But maist o’ the time we chust have to carry the secks on our becks, one at a time.
“It’s no way to be treatin’ a fine shup like the Vital Spark, or her crew come to that. What I say iss, if the owner wants to do business o’ that kind then he should have bought himself a coal gabbart for it in the furst place, no’ a vessel that wass aalways meant for better things.
“It is demeanin’ and a disgrace, and I am bleck-affrontit that we have to do work like that. But we canna avoid it if we want to keep oor chobs, so I canna think to buy onything other than a strong wee boat like the one I bought today.”
The Captain cheered up considerably when he saw me signal to the barman for another gill of whisky.
“Could you not think to have another, smaller dinghy as well then,” I suggested, “so that you have the best of both worlds with a boat for work and a boat for, er, the fish
ing too?”
“It would be an expense,” said the Captain, “but I could make the second boat pay for itself, right enough” — I did not press Para Handy for more detail on this point — “but the problem iss there iss no space on deck. The shup is a fine, smert boat but she iss no’ awful big, and what wi’ the hetches and the steam winch and the capstans and the ventilators and aal, there chust would not be the room for two boats on board her.”
“Well,” I suggested, “have you considered one of these new folding boats. I understand they are…”
Para Handy nearly choked on his beer, and broke into a paroxysm of coughing from which I was only able to release him by dint of several hefty smacks on the back.
“Folding boats!” he declared with some vehemence once he was able to articulate again. “Do not speak to me aboot folding boats. They’re nothin’ but a snare and delusion for the unwary: if Dougie wass here he would tell you himself. Chust ask Wullie Jardine on the Saxon. The poor duvvle wass near drooned, thanks to one o’ your precious folding boats, and it’s purely thanks to it too that his name iss now on the Court records at Dunoon.
“Wullie had the same idea ass yourself, he went and bought one o’ these new-fangled Berthon dinghies. She packed up flet, the sides kind of tucked in and there wass hinges on her keel and gunwales so that she folded up in half and back on herself like you wass closin’ the blades of a scissors. The first moonless night — they were in the Holy Loch at the time — Wullie and his Mate opened her oot and put her together, slupped her ower the side o’ the Saxon, took a wee bit o’ a splash net wi’ them, and off to the mooth of the Eachaig like hey-ma-nanny.
“Efferything wass going chust dandy at first, and Wullie had a half-a-dozen wee salmons in the boat in no time at aal, they belonged to nobody, they didna have ony labels on them, when suddenly there’s a bellowin’ from the bank chust below Ardbeg, and out shoots wan o’ the Benmore Estate boats wi’ Mr Younger’s gamekeeper and a wheen o’ his men.
“It wass a mile to where the Saxon was anchored off Kilmun pier but there wass several other puffers there and Wullie reckoned that if they could get a lead on the keeper’s boat, then they could lose her in the derk and Mr Younger’s men wouldna be able to tell which shup the poaching-perty had come from.
“So Wullie and his Mate fair threw themselves at the oars, and a good speed they made too, till efter aboot a half-a-mile or so there wass an awful crackin’ sound like wud spluttin’ in two and the boat chust folded up on itself in less than a second, the bows came oot the watter and the stern came oot at the same time and they snapped together in the air like the chaws o’ a sherk, and trapped Wullie and his Mate inside the hull.
“It wass a mercy they didna droon! She toppled over, but then floated chust long enough for the keeper and his men to come alongside and open her up and take poor Wullie and his Mate oot, and then it wass off to the polis for them, and up to the Sheriff in the mornin’.
“ ‘I’m gled I didna droon, Peter,’ Wullie said the next time I met him. ‘And I kinda ken noo whit Jonah must have felt like yon time he wass in thon whale. But I think it wass a luberty o’ the Argyllshire Standard to carry the story under the headline SKEDADDLING SKIPPER SCUTTLES SKIFF.
“ ‘It made me a laughing-stock on the river for weeks!’ ”
FACTNOTE
The puffers did indeed undertake contracts which involved their crews in some truly backbreaking labour, and the delivery of coal to the more isolated lighthouses was one of the most hated of these. I had a first-hand account of a Ross and Marshall puffer which supplied coal to the cliff and rock stations in and around Mull in the 1940s: even listening to the tale made the muscles ache at the mere thought of the physical hardships.
Folding or collapsible boats are no myth, either.
The ‘Berthon’ boats were possibly the best known of these. They were the invention of Edward Lyon Berthon, a man who deserves to be better known if only for the bizarre circumstances of his life and career. Born in 1813, he died in 1899 and in the years between charted, with mixed success, a strangely diverse and various voyage through life. He originally studied medicine but in his mid-30s he returned to university to read theology and served as a curate in several parishes in the South of England.
A NEW LIFEBOAT — The MacGrorys captured every detail of Campbeltown’s ‘great day’ in the summer of 1912 when the town’s first powered lifeboat the William Macpherson was handed over. It is shown being manoeuvred out of the builder’s (onshore) yard, carted through the streets of the town amidst a great throng of people, formally named down at the harbour, and then finally launched — as shown here — with considerable aplomb. I wonder who the lady was?
Throughout all these years however, invention, and specifically marine invention, seems to have been his great interest though it was pursued with scant success — and even less luck. For in 1835, and a full year before Pettit-Smith registered the first patent for a screw propellor for ships, Berthon submitted plans for just such a device to the British Admiralty — who rejected them.
His next invention, a nautical log, was also thrown out by the Admiralty. A trier, if nothing else, he then developed a design for a folding boat and this, too, was submitted to the powers-that-be in Whitehall. Once again (and with a regular monotony which hints at a lack of imagination somewhere within official circles) the Navy did not want to know — though in this case they did at least give a prototype a ‘trial run’.
It says much for Mr Berthon’s perseverance that he returned to the fray some years later and this time his improved design for a folding boat was accepted and endorsed by the Admiralty.
The boats which were finally manufactured were usually of small size and were popular for some years with yacht-owners, as when not in use they stowed more easily and occupied less space. But they could — and sometimes did — fold up on themselves without warning when in use!
More serious attempts to develop larger versions of what were now being intended as collapsible ship’s lifeboats were made early this century: the Englehardt design was the best known. There were four boats of this type on the Titanic though only two were assembled in time to launch before the ship sank.
32
The Umburella Men
Para Handy pushed open the brightly-coloured stained-glass door of MacGrory’s double-fronted drapery store on Campbeltown Main Street and shut it smartly behind him against the biting cold south-easterly March wind. In response to the tinkle from the bell set above the door, the curtain at the rear of the shop which led to the fitting rooms was swept aside, and one of the two brothers who owned the business appeared, a tape-measure round his neck and a pair of serrated cutting-scissors in his right hand.
“Ah, Captain MacFarlane,” he said jovially when he saw who his customer was. “ Pleased to see you as always. What may we do for you today?”
“No’ much to be worth your trouble, Mr MacGrory,” said Para Handy. “But I am after a new woollen comforter. I lost my auld wan overboard yestreen, what wi’ the wund, and it no’ properly tucked in, and it’s a cauld spell o’ weather to be withoot.”
The draper pulled down a glass-fronted drawer from the wall of such drawers behind the counter and in a matter of moments Para Handy had selected a bright red scarf and wrapped it securely round his neck.
“There iss no need to be makin’ a parcel of it. I will chust wear it straight aff”, he said, and bringing a handful of coins from his pocket he paid for his purchase and moved towards the door.
“Before you go, Peter,” called MacGrory, “could I ask a favour of you? I hear you’re off to Glasgow tomorrow morning with a load of whisky and then straight back in a couple of days with a cargo of barley. Is that right?”
“Chust so,” said the Captain.
“Well,” said MacGrory. “It’s like this…”
His tale was soon told.
Campbeltown, standing in splendid isolation at the foot of the Kintyre peninsula a hundred miles
or so from Glasgow, has too small a population to make possible the provision within the town of all the services which modern life expects. Thus it is that the MacGrory brothers, though purveyors of umbrellas, are unable to offer a repair service for broken ribs or torn panels from their own resources.
Umbrellas brought in for repair are kept within the premises and then at regular intervals conveyed to Glasgow to the workshops of the reputed wholesale house of Messrs Campbell and MacDonald, courtesy of their representative Mr James Swan, when he visits Campbeltown on one of his regular journeys in the West. They are returned, once repaired, courtesy of that same gentleman, who sees this service as being the very least he can do for one of the most valued and valuable customers on his entire circuit.
“Mr Swan was here just three weeks ago, Peter, and took a stack of umbrellas to Glasgow with him. I’ve now had a telegram from Campbell and MacDonald to tell me they are repaired and ready for my customers, but Mr Swan has broke a leg wi’ a fall on icy cobbles, and won’t be back to Campbeltown for at least another month.
“I was wondering if you would be good enough to collect them for me when you’re in Glasgow and fetch them back doon later this week…?”
The Vital Spark edged in to the private quay at the distiller’s Partick bottling plant late the following afternoon and for the next three hours the puffer’s steam-winch spluttered and coughed as the precious cargo of finest Campbeltown Malt Whisky was swung ashore under the watchful scrutiny of the plant’s own security men, a pair of bleak-eyed Customs Officers — and Para Handy and his frustrated crew.
“Chust imagine,” said the Captain with some rancour later the same evening as he grudgingly slapped his sixpence onto the bar counter at the nearby Auld Toll Vaults and picked up the glass containing his diminutive dram, “chust imagine here and we’ve been and delivered enough whusky to keep the whole o’ Partick in drams for a twelvemonth and we are expected to pay for chust the wan wee taste o’ the cratur.
Complete New Tales of Para Handy Page 23