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The Grouch - April 06

A LIFETIME AGO my nationalistic instincts were awakened.  It was 1947, in the days when a pound was twenty shilling and that was a great deal of money, especially to a teenager.  My take home pay at that time was £2.10 shillings a week and every penny counted.  I was in London on Scouting duty, to meet the Chief Scout, to collect a coveted award, and everything was new and exciting.  I wore the kilt with pride.

Then, a great injustice was done to me which marked me for life, shattering my illusion that all men were equal and forcing me to reassess my core beliefs.  I walked into a shop to buy a trinket, a souvenir of my big adventure in the capital city of the British Empire.  I handed over a precious Scots pound note but my change was sixpence short.  Always one to count my baw-bees, I questioned the mistake, only to be told by the shopkeeper that his bank charged him for handling this “funny money” from Scotland.  Subsequently I realised that that may or may not have been true.  I was dismayed, angry, demeaned, humiliated, impoverished, appalled, distressed, disillusioned and sixpence out of pocket!

By divine intervention, that gross injustice was rectified the very next day.  In the company of a flock of English Scouts I boarded a river boat for a brief excursion on the Thames when, low and behold, I found a shiny new sixpence smiling up at me from the decking.  The sun broke through at that moment, but the original feeling of injustice stayed with me for nigh on sixty years during which time I made a point of always carrying Scottish bank notes whenever I travelled abroad, especially to England.  Often the notes would puzzle people and occasionally, just occasionally, the ignorant would ask if they were legal tender.

Then, in my golden years, I recounted my story to a friend, Paddy, who was in fact a Yorkshire man and therefore as close to being Scottish as any Englishman can be.  Immediately he got the picture and came up with the remedy for my ridiculous hang-up about the “English”.  He said, “Send me a new Scottish one pound banknote (a novelty the English no longer enjoy) and I will send you one pound and sixpence by return”.

True to his word he did, and so released me from the recurring nightmare that I was being cheated by a shopkeeper in a souvenir shop somewhere in England. 

More recently a lady of my acquaintance told me of a similar experience she had had south of the border.  When she tendered a Scottish ten pound note the assistant looked at it, held it up to the light, and then asked her superior if it was legal.  The boss was more worldly wise and of course the transaction went through.  My lady friend then said to the young assistant “You know in Scotland we actually accept English bank notes”.  The lassie looked puzzled and had no answer.  I wonder if she has worked it out yet?

Footnote:  All is forgiven!  Next Friday will in fact be the “Be nice to the English day” and I will be leading the parade.

* * * * *

NOT LONG AGO I was admiring the improvements being made around the Aberfeldy Golf Course.  The old cow pastures of the village, now turned into pleasure grounds for both golfers and walkers, are a splendid amenity.  There was the gentle smell of wood smoke on the breeze, where the forester was burning debris from his tree-thinning work down by the river bank.  He was doing a neat and tidy job!

Then one day the little bonfires were put out and were replaced by a noisy contraption which spat out heaps of wood chips as the branches were fed into the other end.  It transpired that someone, one individual walking a dog, had complained about the wood smoke and the Golf Club was required to stop the clearing up and bring in the noisy machine.

Why, I wondered?  Is it illegal to burn branch wood and brush?  Can we no longer burn garden rubbish?  In a rural area such as we all enjoy, does it cause anyone a problem?  I think not!

Perhaps the complainer was just having a bad day and felt grumpy.  Perhaps he or she is just one of those sad people who moan about most things.  Did they think they were helping to save the planet by banning such fires?  Did they measure the pollution from the wood chipping machine against that of the bonfires?  I’ll bet the former was the bigger polluter.  I’ll also bet that most of us who enjoy the riverside amenity would have voted for the sweet smelling wood smoke every time!

by Alex Peak

PS:  Comment has since learned that, in addition to the diesel wood chipper, a tractor and trailer were required to transport the wood chips to a tip! (Ed)

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