The titter is back. This time it is from reading an anthology of the late Hector MacDonald’s columns, originally published by the West Highland Free Press. I recently met the charming widow MacDonald, or as she is apparently known at the hospital Maggie Leurbost. (Get out your atlases -- or is it atlai?)

 

 

Anywho, Mr MacDonald wrote using the pseudonym Aimsir Eachainn, which I am certain has some double entendre and whenever I manage to learn the Gaelic, I’ll share it with you. He was not a writer by trade (employed formally by Meteorological Office; began his own fish farming business; did a bit of crofting). But this man was a natural at the keyboard (or notebook).

 

Under the rather undemanding title A View from North Lochs (again, maps to the ready), he submitted prose with ideas, digressions, flights of fantasy, sublime observations, et al -- very far from straightforward. Is it fact or surreal? Never easy to tell with Aimsir, or here in the Outer Hebrides.

 

Below’s just a short snippet from his column first published in August 1984, composed shortly after the “Glasgow Fair Fortnight,” the traditional two-week holiday (vacation) of that great city to the south (for those in the dark):-

 

“One class of gentleman you will never catch shearing sheep is the Glasgow Fairy -- you know, these fellows who assume everyone is on holiday when they are. They do a lot of roaming and visiting with white plastic bags. They tarry all night and let their hearts be merry. You will probably have heard they were stuck in Ullapool for two days when the ferry broke down. This was no accident.

“The variable pitch prop was deliberately ‘fixed’ by a friend of mine who says he has never had a decent night’s sleep during the last fortnight in July with the ructions raised by the Fairies. Unfortunately the people of Ullapool hired expert engineers at great expense to get the boat repaired and rid of them as soon as possible. And believe me, the people of Ullapool do not go to expense, great or small, without good reason. Still, two days’ peace are better than none.”

 

Eachainnn’s rapier took delicious slices out of the locals, Maggie Thatcher, US Presidents, etc. Just about any phoney he came across, always however with self-deprecation, wit, and humour.

 

Read him:-

 

A View from North Lochs, Aimsir Eachainn, Birlinn Limited, Edinburgh

ISBN 10: 1 84158 630 7 /