Whisky, Kilts, and the Loch Ness Monster

by William W. Starr

  I met her husband on the second floor; he had been sipping tea and had the morning newspaper clutched in his hand. Tall and chatty, his informality matching that of his wife, he asked about my background and was pleased to hear I was pursuing my journey with Boswell and Johnson through Scotland’s Highland history. He knew Atlanta well from a number of visits there as well as to Augusta for the Masters golf tournament and to the Sea Islands for vacations. He also has done research at the Library of Congress and knew the librarian, Dr. Ray Billington, whom I had met on one occasion.

  He explained how the estate functioned to provide the necessary money to sustain its operation, maintaining everything from a golf course on the banks of the River Avon to a herd of Aberdeen Angus cows, said to be the oldest in the world, descended from black, hornless cattle whose presence goes back to the twelfth century. “With a banking background,” the lady laird wrote in Ballindalloch Castle of her husband, “he realised that substantial growth in income stream was needed to pay the salary and maintenance bills at a time when farm rents were falling behind…. Twenty-five years later there is no doubt that the strategy has worked, with the cherished family home also functioning as a successful business…. None of this is change for its own sake. It is the sympathetic development of a Highland estate in tune with modern times.”

  The castle interior reflected the presence of a family whose ancestors had lived there since the sixteenth century. It also included some important modernization, like the addition of five bathrooms, completed in the 1970s, where only one had existed previously. The walls showcased portraits of the Macpherson and Grant ancestors. One in the drawing room especially stood out: James Grant, the Revolutionary War governor of Florida. Actually there were two portraits. The first, commissioned in 1770, showed Grant has a young boy in military uniform. In later life Grant was known as a gourmet who traveled with his own cook charged with tasting his food before he ate to ensure its high quality. The other portrait of Grant on the wall was a caricature made in 1798 that shows a distinguished, older and incredibly corpulent man; next to him Dr. Johnson would appear more like Richard Simmons. Mr. Russell told me the portrait has been labeled “The fattest man in Scotland.” How refreshing that they have such an appealing sense of humor.

  I had a delicious lunch in the castle’s public tea room, looked over the gift shop, and decided to purchase a baseball cap with the Ballindalloch logo as a souvenir. It’s still one of the most prized possessions from my trip, and I have memories of the lady laird and her husband that I wish I could share with Boswell and Johnson to reassure them of the continuing hospitality of Highlanders. The sun was going down, but it was still warm when I arrived back in Elgin for a fine dinner of fresh salmon and single malt from the nearby Glenfiddich distillery in one of Scotland’s most whiskified regions. Apparently the waiter didn’t think that I looked much like anyone to mistrust or that I bore any resemblance to the cheap Mr. Paufer.

  17

  Down the East Coast

  Boswell and Johnson came to Elgin after a trip along the coast, through the small towns of Banff and Cullen, as they had pursued a path up the east coast of Scotland from Edinburgh to Dundee, to St. Andrews, Arbroath, and Aberdeen. At breakfast one morning in Cullen they encountered “dried haddocks, broiled,” the famous “smokies” of the Scottish coast. Boswell ate just one, and Johnson “disliked their presence, so they were removed.” The best-known dish of this region is the Cullen skink which, no matter what you might think it is, is a soup made from milk or cream, potatoes, and smoked haddock. It shows up on many menus around Scotland, and I found it a simple preparation and invariably delicious.

  The night before at Banff—which I did not visit—Johnson was unhappy with the windows in his room at the inn and launched into a small tirade. The doctor loved fresh air and was always opening windows at night, even in cold weather. This time he was frustrated, and Boswell recorded his annoyed remarks:

  Here unluckily the windows had no pulleys; and Dr. Johnson, who was constantly eager for fresh air, had much struggling to get one of them kept open. Thus he had a notion impressed upon him, that this wretched defect was general in Scotland; in consequence of which he erroneously enlarged upon in his Journey. I regretted that he did now allow me to read over his book before it was printed. I should have changed very little, but I should have suggested an alteration in a few places where he has laid himself open to be attacked. I hope I should have prevailed with him to omit or soften his assertion that “a Scotsman must be a sturdy moralist, who does not prefer Scotland to truth”—for I really think it is not founded; and it is harshly said.

  And what did Johnson say that provoked outrage from the Scots? Here, with a bit of editing, it is:

  The art of joining squares of glass with lead is little used in Scotland, and in some places is totally forgotten. The frames of their windows are all of wood. They are more frugal of their glass than the English, and will often, in houses not otherwise mean, compose a square of two pieces, not joining like cracked glass, but with one edge laid perhaps half an inch over the other. Their windows do not move upon hinges, but are pushed up and drawn down in grooves, yet they are seldom accommodated with weights and pullies. He that would have his window open must hold it with his hand, unless what may be sometimes found among good contrivers, there be a nail which he may stick into a hole, to keep it from falling.

  What cannot be done without some uncommon trouble or particular expedient, will not often be done at all. The incommodiousness of the Scotch windows keeps them very closely shut. The necessity of ventilating human habitations has not yet been found by our northern neighbours: and even in houses well built and elegantly furnished, a stranger may be sometimes forgiven, if he allows himself to wish for fresher air.

  Alas that does not conclude the good doctor’s thoughts on the subject, though you might be forgiven for hoping otherwise. He continued with a rant, admitting that, while that such moments are petty, “it must be remembered that life consists not of a series of illustrious actions, or elegant enjoyments; the greater part of our time passes in compliance with necessities, in the performance of daily duties, in the removal of small inconveniences, in the procurement of petty pleasures.” In other words, if they couldn’t even get the windows right, then there’s not a lot to be said for the Scots as nation. Boswell was right in this instance, though as usual it’s fun to read about all sides of the journey.

  Johnson and Boswell did get into a rather frolicsome discussion on the way to Banff that survives in Boswell’s account and which surely would have offended any educated Scot who might have overheard it. Boswell proposed, as something of an amusing mental entertainment, that he and Johnson and the members of their famous literary club in London should take over the highly regarded St. Andrews University (which they had just visited) and rebuild it in their own way. “Mr. Johnson entered fully into the spirit of this idea,” Boswell wrote, and the two engaged in a lengthy discussion of assigning the club members to various educational departments. Boswell would teach “Civil and Scotch law,” and Johnson—who initially said he would trust “Theology to nobody but myself”—eventually agreed to devote himself to “Logic, Metaphysics and Scholastic Divinity.” It was obviously a high old time for both. (The Club was the brainchild of the painter Sir Joshua Reynolds and was founded in 1764 in London. Its esteemed members, thirty-three initially, included an assortment of writers, religious people, debaters, actors, and others whose strong opinions would make for lively conversation and penetrating thought.)

  Bozzy and Dr. Johnson had done a little castleling on their own just before Banff, when they accepted an invitation to stop at Slains Castle, then an elegant cliff-top residence between Aberdeen and Peterhead on the east coast and now an abandoned ruin. The writer Bram Stoker used to spend some vacation time there, and it is said that the castle’s dark, stark setting served as the inspiration for the castle in Dracula. Boswell and Johnson visited several natural sites nearby in
cluding the Bullers of Buchan, still a striking 250-foot-deep chasm through which the ocean crashes. Johnson was impressed: “No man can see with indifference, who has either sense of danger or delight in rarity…. The edge of the Buller is not wide, and to those that walk round, appears very narrow. He that ventures to look downward sees, that if his foot should slip, he must fall from his dreadful elevation upon stones on one side, or into the water on the other. We however went round and were glad when the circuit was completed.” Boswell found it “somewhat horrid to move along” and thought it “alarming to see Mr. Johnson poking his way.” Later the two at their most adventuresome were rowed into the cave, an amphitheater of natural rock. Boswell seemed much happier when he returned to the castle and could relax and sip warm tea.

  I managed enough time to get to a few more castles in the continuing glorious, unseasonably warm early spring weather. Some thirty miles southeast of Elgin I came across Huntly Castle, a baronial residence for five centuries with a few remaining sections dating back to the twelfth century. Like other ruins, it had no roof but a grand tower still stood and below was a passageway where five-centuries-old graffiti was scrawled on the plastered walls. Nothing about Kilroy or Thorni bedded Helga (only because Helga never got this far south of the Orkneys, I’m sure), but rather drawings of a clock face, a bull, and men and women in sixteenth-century dress. Quite fascinating.

  About an hour farther south I pulled the car into the crowded car park at Crathes Castle, my thirst for castleling not yet slaked in this incredibly castle-rich nation. The castle was spectacular and so were the six-hundredacre, gracefully landscaped grounds surrounding it. The grounds were filled with people lying about in the grass, picnicking and sunning, enjoying the temperatures that had now reached into the low eighties. I was hardly the only one talking about the weather; one man was telling his wife he couldn’t remember a spring “so bloody hot.” And on the television, I heard later, the weather forecaster said northern Scotland was having a record heat wave and that most places had gone a couple of weeks without rain. And no one mentioned wind.

  Crathes, dating from the sixteenth century, was the seat of the Burnett family for centuries before the National Trust took over its care in 1951. It has been attractively preserved. It must have been a tough place for enemies to penetrate; the walls at ground level are five feet thick. I met a guide who said that rooms in the castle are not hosted and that, while photography is prohibited, there was no reason I couldn’t make photos as long as I didn’t use a flash and disturb anyone. I thought that was exceedingly generous counsel, and I took him up on it.

  I skipped the grounds to get to my third castle of the day while it was still daylight. It was Drum Castle, only about ten miles west of Aberdeen, which was a stop for Boswell and Johnson (neither of whom saw any of the castles I previously visited on this day). Drum turned out to be my first castle disappointment in spite of its rich history. Given by Robert the Bruce to his armor-bearer William de Irvine, the castle remained in Irvine family hands for twenty-four generations until the National Trust acquired it in 1976. It’s a bit of a hodgepodge, combining a thirteenth-century tower with a Jacobean mansion and a Victorian-era extension. It has been furnished with a variety of items that don’t really go with anything, and most definitely not with the castle itself. My guide, who was rather smug about everything, continually pointed out chairs and tables that didn’t match the rooms.

  I decided I had become castled-out for the day and needed to take a break. So I slipped away from my guide and headed for exit. Outside I suddenly was overcome by weariness and the heat. I was getting cranky, too, which might have accounted for my displeasure with the tour. I definitely wasn’t in the mood to deal with a busy city like Aberdeen that evening—even though Boswell and Johnson had been there—and I made a last-minute decision to skip it and find a closer, quieter stop. I would make up for this slight by rereading my companions’ entries for Aberdeen before going to sleep.

  “We came somewhat late to Aberdeen, and found the inn so full, that we had some difficulty in obtaining admission, till Mr. Boswell made himself known; his name overpowered all objection, and we found a very good house and civil treatment,” Johnson wrote. Boswell supplied the details of their meal: “broiled chicken, some tarts, and crab’s claws.” I knew the inn where they stayed had been destroyed many years ago, so I didn’t miss staying in their wake. Aberdeen was their home for three nights during which ensued a variety of social engagements and conversations with the gentry of the city. They spoke of religion and education and literature, and Johnson—who was slowly edging toward ill humor—delivered himself of a few more opinions that would not endear him to the Scots when his book appeared. Johnson’s spirits did lift the morning of their departure, however, when the landlady at their inn asked Boswell, “Is this not the great Doctor that is going through the country?” When Boswell replied that indeed he was, she said,

  “We heard of him. I made an errand into the room on purpose to see him. There’s something great in his appearance. It is a pleasure to have such a man in one’s house; a man who does so much good. If I had thought, I would have shown him a child of mine who has had a lump on his throat for some time.”

  “But,” said I, “he’s not a Doctor of Physic.”

  “Is he an oculist?” said the landlord.

  “No,” said I, “he’s just a very learned man.”

  Said the landlord, “They say he’s the greatest man in England except [Lord Chief Justice] Lord Mansfield.”

  Boswell wrote that Johnson “was highly entertained with this,” and he later wrote that Johnson observed with pride that, “To have called me the greatest man in England would have been an unmeaning compliment; but the exception marked that the praise was in earnest.”

  All things considered, I didn’t feel I was missing too much when I awoke and abandoned any lingering notions of a stop in Aberdeen. The novelist Lewis Gibbon said of it, “One detests Aberdeen with the detestation of a thwarted lover. It is the one hauntingly and exasperatingly lovable city of Scotland.” I was never quite sure whether he liked it or hated it, but I had gotten quite tired of reading about it. Yes, Aberdeen is the third largest city in Scotland after Glasgow and Edinburgh, and yes it is a busy industrial city, but there is a lot of traffic and there are no castles there, and I had recovered from my burnout the day before. I had in mind a stop at Dunnottar, which my breakfast companion had strongly advised visiting, before picking up the trail of Boswell and Johnson in Arbroath.

  The eighteenth-century travelers passed near Dunnottar as they approached Aberdeen but didn’t stop. I don’t know how they could have resisted. (Well, actually, given that the castle was largely in ruins, and in private hands apparently unknown to Boswell, there was no likelihood of a visit there.) I couldn’t imagine not stopping here: the castle ruins were utterly breathtaking; even the least militarily strategic wizard among us could take one quick look and see instantly that the castle was perched at a powerfully defensible site but also on a most beautiful one: an enormous, flat-topped rock with sheer cliffs on three sides jutting out into the North Sea and attached to the mainland only by a very narrow neck of land.

  On this bright and sunny day it was both rugged and picture-book pretty; some may remember it as the backdrop for Franco Zeffirelli’s film version of Hamlet. Its history is amazing, filled with many of the most famous names in Scottish history and awash in their blood. Not only that, but it was also at Dunnottar that a small garrison of troops withstood an eight-month siege by Oliver Cromwell’s army and assured the safety of “The Honours of Scotland,” that is, the Scottish crown and other coronation regalia.

  The castle is reached these days only by walking first down then up a narrow, steep staircase of maybe eighty to ninety steps each way; signs advised accurately that anyone out of shape would experience difficulties in reaching the interior. It was a challenge well worth meeting. There was a lot of walking required once inside, too, but the remai
ning structures were fascinating and well described in my guidebook, and the views out to sea and the waves crashing against the cliffs below were nothing less than awe-inspiring. Alastair Cunningham’s guidebook Dunnottar Castle proved a valuable companion for my visit, packed with interesting details yet not neglecting the full scope of the castle’s role in Scottish history.

  Briefly, Scotland’s first saint, Ninian, brought Christianity to this part of the country in the fifth century, founding a fortified church at this site. The Vikings invaded in the ninth century, but Dunnottar remained a religious site for several more centuries until it became a prized possession in the ceaseless wars between Scotland and England. King Edward I’s English troops occupied the castle in the late thirteenth century, when William Wallace attacked. Many of the English garrison hid in the chapel; Wallace burned it down (suggesting the English had some reason for torturing him to death when he fell into their hands a few years later.) Wallace’s exploits here were later celebrated in a poem by Blind Hary as part of his truthful/fanciful accounting of Wallace’s life. The castle continued to be occupied first by the Scots, then the English, and there was no want of fighting. Mary, queen of Scots, visited here several times before Cromwell claimed the structure a century later. And it was Cromwell’s siege guns that demolished much of the castle, leaving the rest for the storms and winds that normally blast the castle as they roar off the North Sea.

  The existing chapel ruins at Dunnottar date back to the sixteenth century, since Wallace burned down the first chapel in 1297. The vaulted cellar that constitutes the prison is the most striking of the remaining structures; it was there, in a semi-derelict castle, that 167 men and women were kept for nine weeks in the mid-seventeenth century with little food and no sanitation. There were few breathing holes. Walking through the prison and imagining 167 people in it, each starving, struggling for breath in a fetid, squeezed atmosphere, was incomprehensible. I had had enough; I took the long walk back to the car, and, exhausted mentally and physically, turned south to Arbroath.