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Hoots & Havers with James Irvine Robertson

July 06

IT WAS a lovely picnic spot, neatly carved out of the trees by the Council with little islands of privacy off the access track - heather, birches, Scots pines. The rain had stopped and the others in the car were unanimous in their approval as we spread ourselves on a table, chained to the ground, beneath a magnificent oak.

But I had an uneasy feeling in my bowels, a gloomy premonition of something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Of course, it should have been obvious and it certainly was within five minutes. The midge.

Note that it’s a midge, not a midgie. It may be a central beltish thing or perhaps the sign of an infantile mind to call the creature a midgie. It makes no more sense than talking about the Forth Bridgie.

I’m told that an extra inch – inchie? - of rain falls each year for every mile one moves west of Aberfeldy. Dr Mackay claimed 37.4 inches for the town and Glencoe is supposed to be deluged by 100, so it may well be true. It also seems true that the midge population explodes not very far to the west in close correlation with the rainfall pattern. Here, so long as one avoids the higher and the soggier places, one can go through an entire summer without noticing them. But it’s impossible to the west.

I still shudder at the memory of reading about young Archie Cameron on Rum, puzzled at seeing his father and uncles working a field with panes of glass slung on their backs. It was only when he got close that he realized it was the sun reflecting from the wings of the midges. We have Skye-based friends who have those rather expensive midge machines that hum away, huffing out carbon dioxide and luring the little brutes to their deaths in countless millions. There’s no question that these work and one of them can carve enough clear air for a barbecue, but we were up there recently and discovered a whole culture – a bit like the motor mower culture – devoted to keep the things working. And just like motor mowers they break down when they are most needed. They require bullets, apparently, and pills. And a single pill costs £10 in Lochcarron.

* * * *

WITH A HEAVY HEART I quit smoking the other day. This was distressing for several reasons. I enjoyed it; it kept away the aforementioned midges;  it was of the few full-blown vices in which I was still able to indulge, and about the only kind of boys’ toys I really enjoyed playing with were lighters.

But I was too tight-fisted to continue spending the sort of money it entailed and I found myself wheezing in the wake of too many people when it came to climbing hills. My sister and her husband also gave up, but have fallen by the wayside and are at it again. But theirs is a furtive habit, a few deep drags before they get in the car, or in the garden, often sharing the same butt. If you still do it, flaunt it. Do I feel a better person for having given up? No. But hill-climbing ability has improved to an extent that I find startling.

* * * *

I’VE HAD SEVERAL phone calls from people about the new health centre in Pitlochry. Apparently it means the demise of the Irvine Memorial Hospital and  the phoner-uppers feel that I should froth a bit and insist that the facility replacing it should go by the name of the New Irvine Memorial Something-or-other.

Dr Willie Irvine, after whom the old facility was named, was a mega-great uncle of mine, and an early medic in the town. This is why I am believed to have an interest, but he died in 1893 and he’s surely had quite a good run for his money already. Perhaps it’s someone else’s turn to be memorialised.

My ordinary uncle George is also a medic and applied for a job in Pitlochry in 1946. Apparently there were scores of doctors fresh out of the Forces chasing the position and it went to the highest bidder, who was not George. Dr Irvine ran three horses and built the substantial Craigatin House on the outskirts of the town. Even his wee brother, a sugar broker in Glasgow, thought this pretty good going. Pitlochry doctoring has long been a lucrative profession.

* * * *

‘All the world is queer save thee and me,

And even thou art a little queer.’

Which was the Quaker Robert Owen’s way of saying that people believe the strangest things.

This is absolutely fine, so long as they don’t try to impose their beliefs on anyone else.

The established faith in this country is based upon a set of Middle Eastern Bronze Age myths, which is really pretty odd. But not half as odd as thinking they are the literal truth. But I would go to the barricades to protect the right to believe in them, or anything else – even the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (www.venganza.org) which is not half as silly as it sounds.

I know a local gay couple that wanted a cleaner for their house. Someone turned up to check it out and agreed to take on the job, but then discovered the gaiety of its inhabitants, reeled back in disgust and tried to put off others from applying. The reason given for this reaction was that such practices were against God as believed by the cleaner’s sect of choice which, according to its website, is against sex before marriage, masturbation, homosexuality, lotteries, horse racing, bingo, spiritual healing, Christmas and birthdays, yoga, smoking and dirty jokes.

I think I’m in favour of most of these. Take homosexuality, for example. My cousin is 75ish and gay and has been as good as married to the same bloke for over half a century. They have paid vast sums in taxes, have cost the state nothing for educating their young and impinge in no way whatsoever on the peaceful enjoyment of life of anyone else. Model citizens, in fact.

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