Fifty Years Ago: Wednesday, 11 August 1976
(Loch Maree — Age 14 years, 10 months)
I didn’t get to sleep until after midnight, then slept through until a tray of tea and a newspaper arrived at 7.30. Breakfast was downstairs.
According to the guest book, seventy-six foreigners had stayed there already that year. It seemed odd that such an out-of-the-way place should interest so many French people.
There was wind, which was essential for successful dapping.
I read an AA touring handbook.
At eight I went round to Dad’s room. As I was already up, he asked me to order his breakfast. He eventually opened the boot, only to discover that his binoculars were not there after all. They were in the front of the car.
I watched the divers on the loch. Dad knew every bird and could describe each one in detail. I liked his enthusiasm, although ornithology itself went over me like water off a duck’s back. Birds, football, finance—some subjects simply bored me.
His own father had brought him fishing here when he was a teenager. I may have seen photographs of his mother and father together on one of these trips, and perhaps he had also come here with my mother.
He told me about an island where the tradition was to hammer a coin into the trunk of a tree and make a wish. He had wished for a wart on his finger to disappear. That night it dropped off. Loch Maree therefore had at least one proven miracle.
By the time Dad joined me for breakfast, I had finished a bun and a tomato juice.
We couldn’t open Dad’s car boot. Dad and his car problems. I remembered him locking his keys inside the car when I was small—twice—and somebody coming to the rescue with a bent metal coat hanger. He was usually mechanically minded, which made it more ridiculous.
It took an hour under motor to reach Grudie, where a river ran into the deepest part of the loch. The fish came there to spawn, so it ought to have been promising.
We caught nothing all morning.
I fed some juvenile gulls from my packed lunch. It gave me something to do.
There were a few nibbles in the afternoon.
I slept on the island. I loved sleeping outside and feeling at one with nature. Voices carried astonishingly clearly across the water. It was like having a magic listening device: people far away sounded close enough to overhear.
Later I tried fishing with a small rod. It was still fly-fishing, but at least it offered a different approach
Leave a Reply