Two Loch Seaforths

When I first left The Island I was fourteen years old and innocent of all vices, well mostly innocent. Now I reminisce about that trip as I sit in the cafe in An Lanntair gallery in Stornoway, gentle rain falling outside, while I finish my bowl of lentil soup, feeling quite nostalgic for those days.

I struggle to control my emotions as I stravaig around the town I once knew so well. Not much has changed really, I would struggle to get lost, so I won't try, but stravaiging is good and it gives me an excuse to use that interesting word, twice. It reminds me of an excellent book by Edmund White, called The Flaneur which is about him stravaiging around Paris. Not quite as romantic as my stravaig around Stornoway in the cold and misty rain, bit if you're a fan of Paris worth an hour or two of your time.

That trip was the first of many voyages across the Minch, too many to count, some very memorable as we plunged through force ten gales, some very boring if not tiresome. We sailed on an old steamer called the Loch Seaforth to Kyle of Lochalsh, and now here I am over fifty years later, returning to The Island, for what I hope won't be my last visit, and also on a vessel called Loch Seaforth, though this one is a brand new vehicle ferry sailing between Ullapool and Stornoway. Coincidence?  as the great man said "take what you have gathered from coincidence ........  it's all over now.....". Maybe not quite all over, but we're getting there.

That trip was courtesy of my Auntie, who was the district nurse in North Tolsta for nearly twenty years. We called her Tosta because my brother couldn't pronounce her name, which in Gaelic was something like Barbara Ann, but her birth certificate says Anna Bella. Anyway she was very good to us all and took us three brothers on similar trips over three years in the early sixties. After an overnight sail to Kyle we took a train to Inverness and from the to Kingussie, in the Cairngorms and then to Glasgow, where we stayed for a few nights with her friends the Horns, one of whom she's known since 1920s.

 It was then that I had my first visit to a cinema as we were not allowed to go to see movies in Stornoway due to the risk of contamination with bad ideas. The film I persuaded my aunt to take me to see was a bio pic of Hank Williams, which I've since seen on DVD. I've seen many films since then but that one I remember best. Maybe because of the transgressive nature of  the event. I don't know if my father ever found out. I can't remember if I went alone or with my aunt. Her views on the movie, if she dd see it, are lost to my memory. So maybe she didn't go.

We then travelled by train to London where we stayed with my uncle Neil for two weeks. The first of many visits I've made to that city but also the most memorable, not that my other visit lacked memories. I can remember everything about that trip and could almost give you a daily diary. But I'm not going to just now, maybe another time, or ask me about next time we meet.

I will draw this to a close now.This is my second visit to the cafe here and it's late now. Well it's ten o'clock so late for a young man. I've had a somewhat emotional day as I went to visit the War Memorial in Point. Of which more later. But it was a successful visit.