Carradale

[Bochan Mor]

Ach the 'Wee Village' is quite ordinary now, compared to what it was in our young days. There's naw even half of the true characters now. A few still survive right enough.

We'll I've packed ma bag for a week or two and I'm heading off on holiday with the Heidless Horseman. We thought we might spend a few days down at Dunaverty, maybe haunting the remains of the Keil Hotel for a night or two, walking in Columba's footsteps and swinging from the Arranman's Barrels.

Aye it certainly seems to be quieter down there, and at least we'll get clear of the goats for a few nights, wont we?

[The Scouder]

We thought we might spend a few days down at Dunaverty, maybe haunting the remains of the Keil Hotel for a night or two, walking in Columba's footsteps and swinging from the Arranman's Barrels.

Aye Bubbly, looks like it's not just me that's heading down there.
Maybe I should just head for Skipness instead?

Mind you there might be a bit of sport.

Apparently denizens of Southend of a certain age, still can't come to terms with the fact that they had the worst f*****l team ever seen on these shores during the eighties. Seemingly they are now in training to raise the first Petanque team in Kintyre, in the hope that they can finally beat somebody at something. The sight of the Southend boys bedecked in French berets, stripy t-shirts and cravats with strings of onions round their neck is apparently something to behold!

Just wait until Neenie gets in among them. Happy Days!

[bubbly jock]

There's only one way neenie will get a look at any of that lot and that is if he goes to the bar

The only execise they do is lifting their giro's and their elbows to the strains of Mcpherson's farewell to Keil.

Isn't it weird that both the heidless horseman and bochan mor are going away together. Perhaps one and the same. Mind you that lot have been known to pick a fight with themselves so it is possible

[The Heidless Horseman]

Steady now Bubbly, I may have moved out of the village, but I can still receive you loud and clear from the land of the Covenanters.

Sir, you traduce my name by associating me with that droll Bochan Mor.
I had my sights set on Islay for a few days - a kind of alternative whisky trail - before deciding on my next move. Then somehow himself managed to put the puchach on my horse and here we are at Southend, literally (or should that be littoraly? ) the end of the earth.

I can see me heading back to the village for some peace and quiet before too long. My travelling companion has done everything in his power to make us stand out - droll faces pulled at old rhododendrons, milk curdling, swapping the ham in an old boy's roll for treacle and tomato - but for some reason the more he does the more we seem to blend in.

I'll maybe try to lose him later and take a gallop through the village and rattle a few caravans, but it's a bit too open here to get the right sport. Saw some of the local boys throwing these French boules around tonight in the field - thought it was some kind of weird covenanting ritual , but I think the Scouder had it right as I heard one of them shouting "See us the petonk" .

Somehow it put me in mind of the Carradale cricket team back in the 70s. Gary my boy, that is what I call surreal - grown fishermen who should have known better running about the football pitch in a heatwave with big white aran sweaters, white troosers and white shoes on exhorting one another to "stump that hoor oot for **** all! " Tut! The genteel old buffers on BBC 2 would have choked on their tiffin if they had heard the profanities.

Anyway, I'm away before fitba- face returns ......

[GarySutherland]

I've lived in a number of places and I'm proud to say that the residents of any of them could never be described as 'ordinary', Carradale not least amongst them.

Although born an Englishman I harken from a place not many miles from that most Scottish of outposts, Corby. Many of my friends and former work-mates have a Scottish twang to their accents (not to mention their genes) and I count the County as blessed to have them living there.

I'm a Sutherland by marriage, having adopted my wife's family name and dispensed with my own Kentish one. Unusual perhaps but I'm proud to bear it.

Cheers
Gary

[Sanyanya]

I've lived in a number of places

Aye, you and me both Gary, my boy.
Hedges, ditches, barns - you name it
Stayed once with my cousins in Corby before I went to "jine the sodjers"

Some of us are just born for the road - not like the two "hobby" travellers who are currently taking Southend and Dunaverty by storm.
If they get out to Sanda that'll maybe feenish them!

[Ship called Dignity]

Noo who is a crofter and who is a bochan?

Cannae see the heidless horseman mind you!

http://www.campbeltown.info/images/Phot ... sCopy1.jpg

[The Heidless Horseman]

[quote="Davie P"]Noo who is a crofter and who is a bochan?

Cannae see the heidless horseman mind you!

Well there's deng few crofters in it ............

and I was probably running the line

[Thewetman]

The trend setters of their time, Carradale was fillin its ranks with exotiques from all parts long before the Premier league crawled from the prehistoric slime of football past.

And at what the cost

Erchie Mitchell would never huv went all thon way for anythin less than a fish supper and a bottle o Dunsaide

[The Scouder]

If Erchie was five years older he would have had to join the queue outside Portnastorm.

Ah, the braw smell of the clam suppers still has me slevering. Some of the crofters asked for the equivalent of a lucky dip when the big hunger was on them. A tenner (a mighty sum in those days) would score you clams, a selection of prime white fish and a couple of side orders of white and black pudding or whatever else was handy along with the biggest mountain of chips you have ever seen in your life with a couple of fried eggs (turned) on top, dished up in a fine, white, plastic bucket. Knocked back in three gulps and then washed down by a gallon of Semple's milk (but it had to be Semple's, mind!) that fairly set them up for Round 2 in the Cruban!

By the time Erchie was playing, I think it was Rensen's Caff that was doing the fish and chips. Excellent Mine Host, and still better than anything you would get on the Largieside or in the Toon for that matter, even if it did not quite match the legend that was Portnastorm.

[Thewetman]

Away with you, wretched slimy being, us Largiside people don't care much for fancy fare. Grits, Turnip, and the occasional flat Pheasant (road kill is plentiful in the Largiside) were standards. And while potatoes were abounds we had none, for they were for export only.

As children we toiled beside our mothers in the fields lifting farmer Brooms potatoes, his eagle eye watching for slight of hand. Occasionally it would be rumoured that contraband potatoes were to be got from the old hag but she never let on to the children. But her exploits in potato rustling are renowned and to this day - In the Largiside, its an old woman bearing a potato who brings luck as a first foot.

I hear that the heedless wonder is paying a visit to the Largieside, what a treat. The last Carradale spectacle of such magnitude was Les Oman refereeing a Soothend - Largiside triple-threat-grudge-fermers-fitba match with a tin flute instead of a whistle - The Pied Piper of Trumpton.

Speaking of food, Creatures such as yourself better beware the Toonies are developing strange tastes in deep-fried morsels, out with the half pizza - in with scouder nuggets.

[LO]

The last Carradale spectacle of such magnitude was Les Oman refereeing a Soothend - Largiside triple-threat-grudge-fermers-fitba match with a tin flute instead of a whistle - The Pied Piper of Trumpton.

That's a black lie Wet Man - it wasn't Soothend at all.
It was a team from The Kntyre/Kinloch.
As I recall, Southend were too busy trying to beat troops of visiting Boy Scouts half their age.........

[morenish]

and knowing southend, probably had to use their not so secret weapon of size 11 tackety boots wi turned up toes!

but as for stealing tatties, largieside fields are so flat and open, a cleptotattiemaniac has a helluva job working out how to get the best ones,
but they managed, is it right they used to help train the SAS over there?

[Thewetman]

Morenish, not so much the SAS as MI5. Operatives would infiltrate the tattie-hokers and discover the secret compartments in their undergarments used to stow the potatoes, a great deal of determination and planning went into the trade, many older people would strap special creels to their midriffs which looked to all the wurld like a belly. These had to be worn all year so as to not raise suspicion.

Rumour has it that Shoogillie him self was a double agent, thon moothie was really a ultrasonic radar which picked up and reflected the harmonics of starch to a receiver in his bunnet which sent a current through his ears the closer he got to the stash. But he was not beyond bribery a wee jeeli piece usually did the trick. Sean Connery is also rumoured to have spent time with Shoogillie, learning the tricks of the trade fur them bond movies.

[The Heidless Horseman]

Word of the Week : "cleptotattiemaniac" - Looks like they were all at it up there Morenish.

I think the bochan may meet his match when he gets in among the fly folk of Largie. Mind you, I once saw a turnip thinning competition up there and the hosts paid 50p each to thin their own turnips which I never understood!

Which reminds me of the time I was galloping through Muasdale when all of a sudden this hoora size of a turnip, as big as a spacehopper, bounced in front of me and skelped off towards the shore. Nearly put me and my trusty steed in the ditch. It was only then I saw the sign "Heavy Plant Crossing".......