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Hoots and Havers - April 07

‘There’s a tree down in the Birks,’ announced a visitor, and proceeded to tell me all about that rhubarb-stalk of a trunk that has been jammed against the rocks at the base of the top falls since time immemorial.

To my personal knowledge it has been there, looking precisely the same, since January 1991. It must be enjoying the same syndrome as the ‘Mary Rose’, or the artefacts the crannog folk dredge out of Loch Tay. If wood is permanently soaked by water, it doesn’t rot. I would be interested to know how long the trunk has been there. There must be plenty of people whose knowledge of the thing stretches back before mine. Can anyone give earlier dates?

The remarkable tart-up of the eastern side of the Birks must be drawing to a close. They’ve replaced the bridges, rebuilt the fence and re-laid the path. Yellow machinery in many sizes and of many types has puttered about and pyramids of sands and gravel have risen and fallen in the car park.

But there seems to be an unexpected downside in this suburbanization of the Birks. It has attracted the kind of potterer who drizzles litter. Such folk usually confine themselves to towns since they become insecure when too far from concrete but I have noticed several discarded Richmond cigarette packets, always a pioneer species of refuse, and the odd juice container by the new path.

Perhaps signs threatening fines spaced at 20 yards intervals might help. These would also use up more money, which seems to have been the main purpose of the whole makeover.

* * * * *

We’re about to elect a new batch of MSPs and councillors. Being governed is one of the more depressing things about being a human being but, grim as the insolence of office can be in this country, it’s not as bad as many places.

In Kenya last month I came across a neatly bearded pilot in his early fifties named Bill Welsh. He had a couple of little aircraft and a small family business flying tourists and aid workers round the country. A couple of weeks earlier he had ferried half a dozen folk into Mandera, a remote town in the north of the country near where the borders of Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia met. He needed special security clearance since he would be flying into restricted airspace.

He landed and his passengers were taken into town in the shiny 4x4s that are the preferred transport for aid workers. The police at the airstrip asked if he had a clearance certificate. ‘Yes’ he said, and handed it over. The document was taken for inspection while Welsh waited by his aircraft.

A few minutes later two policemen returned. ‘You’re under arrest.’ 

‘Why?’

‘For not having clearance to land here.’

‘But I have. You took the certificate.’

‘That does nor alter the fact that you cannot now show it.’

Mr Welsh was put in jail. It wasn’t that great a jail. It held some twenty other prisoners; some were illegal immigrants, some cattle thieves. Most were great kids, said Welsh, rather better than the police. He was given a cell to himself. About 8 feet square, it held not a stick of furniture. The walls were decorated with human excrement, no window but a slit some seven feet from the floor once covered with wire mosquito netting that had long rusted away. The door would not shut. Some food was offered but it was inedible.

Then darkness fell. Welsh said it was darkness the like of which he had never seen before - Stygian, inky blackness without the faintest inkling that there was once something called light. Once a couple of the prisoners in a nearby cell had a fight – screaming, yelling - splitting the darkness with noise and violence. This attracted a policeman with a feeble yellow torch who clubbed them into silence. The sun came up. Welsh was given a broom and allowed to clean out his cell as best he could. The food was no better; he didn’t eat.

After three days he was taken to court. In Kenya the police do their own prosecuting. He was charged with flying through restricted airspace and landing without a clearance certificate. He conducted his own defence. He pleaded not guilty, saying that he had obtained the necessary certificate and handed it over to the police on landing.

‘Where is the certificate?’ asked the magistrate.

‘The police still have it.’

The magistrate asked the prosecutor if he could see the document. ‘Yes,’ was the reply and it was produced.

The magistrate examined it. ‘This certificate is valid, is it not?’

‘Yes.’

‘There is something here I cannot understand. The defendant produced a valid certificate and was then arrested for not having it?’

‘Yes.’

‘That is absurd. The charge is dismissed. Release the prisoner immediately.’

‘But we can’t do that,’ said the prosecutor ‘We’re going to charge him with flying in terrorists.’

‘Can you produce any evidence to support this allegation?’

‘No, but we’re working on it.’

‘Mr Prosecutor, you are in danger of contempt of court. Release the prisoner.’

Welsh was set free. The magistrate apologised for the way he had been treated, saying that much as he regretted it, this was the way the local police sometimes behaved and he had to live with it. Oh yes. And his aircraft was impounded. It will eventually be released, but could take several weeks.

And what was going on? It may have been an arrogant and over mighty local police force. Or it might have been a simple attempt to extort a bribe. But if that assumption had been made and a bribe offered, then the police would have had a real charge to offer the magistrate.