Every summer during the school holidays I would be packed off to Grandad’s out in the country. The change from the drab, mean streets of the city was more than just pleasing to the eye. It was physical. After two weeks in the country when I spat, my spit was white. Being a kid I had no idea the smog that choked us back in the city was burrowing its way into my lungs. I put the ‘whiteness’ down to the fact that Grandad always made me hot milk each morning. Little did I know.

Although Grandad’s house was tucked snugly inside the little village of Dailly in South West Scotland, it was just a hop, skip and a leap to cool, fresh water, rivers where no foam or froth from detergents had ever been, and fish stayed alive long enough to catch them with a rod. Those rivers snaked their way slowly through lush green meadows as far as the eye could see. Grandad always treated me like a grown up even at ten years old. Every morning I would have to rise at six am and make ready for the Gypsies and tinkers who’d pass through the village on a lorry stopping only outside his house. Waving goodbye I’d climb on board and head for the fields to pick potatoes for ten back breaking hours. This wasn’t exploitation in the sense that we understand it now. The work was hard and it was mean but it meant that ten year old me came home with a pay packet at the end of the week which was almost the equivalent of a grown up. It made me old before my time but I loved every single second of it. Not only that but the weekends were all my own.

A mile from Grandad’s a solitary run-down bothy stood rotting gently in the hot summer sunshine. The village kids had told me ‘Tam the Herd’ lived there and that if I ever went fishing to avoid passing his bothy because Tam had been known to steal children from the city and lock them up in his bothy, and they’d never be seen again. Very few of those same village kids had seen Tam, he needed no trips to the village shop, drew his water from the nearby river and found food in abundance in the fields around him. At times I thought he might be a myth used to scare ‘townies’ like me. If so, it worked.

I always saved as much money from potato picking as I could. I always wanted to thrill and please my mother by returning to Glasgow with ‘gold in great store’ as the famous song went. Weekends were for hunting, running, fishing and simply soaking up the country air, all of which were free.

It was Saturday afternoon and I was high on the hill at Hadyard Terrace getting ready to race a bicycle downhill over a bumpy dust-track to prove to the village kids that us townies were just as foolhardy as they. Suddenly one of the kids shouted ‘Stop!’. I’ve no idea how many teeth that yell saved me, but it was welcome.
‘Look!’ The yelling kid pointed an outstretched hand in the direction of the main road - ‘It’s Tam the Herd!’
Sure enough there was a figure walking purposefully down the road, but before I could focus properly the kids were running full pelt down the hillside in his direction. I’ve often wondered if kids have some kind of psychic ability, some kind of telepathy because no sooner had he been spotted than it seemed to me the entire village’s population of kids were streaming out of doorways and all rushing headlong in the direction of Tam the Herd. Not being sure of what was going on, I followed but kept a healthy distance on my bicycle from the main raft of kids. Getting closer I could see an old, tall man with whiskers down past his chest and wild, shining eyes. He wore Wellington boots, which almost passed his knees, and they made a flopping sound with every step he took. Baggy trousers were held at the middle by a piece of rope and he wore only a jacket with nothing beneath. As he strode alone down the centre of the road he pushed a large stick before him simultaneously using it for walking and shaking at kids who were now taunting and teasing him. Every now and then if a kid got too close he would weild the stick high in the air before swinging it but never was any contact made as the kids were just too nimble.

I followed the pack as Tam rounded the bend at the foot of the road and watched as he made his way inside the Greenhead Tavern. It seemed to me there were hundreds of kids staring through the doorways and climbing up onto window ledges to see what was going on inside. Soon the owner of the bar emerged and threatened us all that if we did not leave he would telephone the police. Given that my Grandad was one of only two people in the village who had a telephone, and that he never let anyone use it allied to the fact that the nearest police station was 17 miles away there was no great urgency as the kids started to split up and make their way home. I decided to go back to Grandad’s and get my fishing gear ready for some night fishing.

I caught a Salmon, not a large one but four or five pounds worth of Salmon was a treasure. It was late and having no way of keeping the fish fresh, I decided that as the full moon was well high, I really should get back to Grandad’s. Taking care not to get caught on the barbed wire fences surrounding the fields, I made my way through the darkness and although a small road skirted the field I was in, I ignored it. It led to Tam the Herd’s bothy and there was no way I was emerging from the gloom to walk past there. Using the field I walked on until I was sure that Tam’s bothy was behind me before climbing the last fence and stepping onto the track clutching my rod and salmon. I had only taken a few paces when through the darkness I thought I heard a strange sound. Once more I heard it and it sounded like a moan. My heart was in my mouth. I couldn’t see a source for the sound and in such a state of fear I froze. I could neither run for Grandad’s, nor run back the way I came, as the sound was so close that I could be running toward it!  Once more I heard it only this time it was clear and discernible ‘Help me!’ it said. Using the moon as the only source of light I scanned the bushes surrounding the field on the opposite side of the road. Unmistakably a man lay partially covered by grass and down in the ditch by the side of the track. ‘Help me son?’ The voice pleaded. I moved closer and realised to my horror it was Tam the Herd.

Keeping a safe distance, I called ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I have fallen laddie, fallen, and I think I shall never get up without help’
It was clear that he had fallen and even through the half-light I could see blood winding its way down his face from a gash on his head.
‘You won’t try anything funny?’ I asked, petrified that at any moment he might leap up and grab me, just as the village kids said he does.
‘This is a very unfunny situation laddie. I simply don’t have the strength to get up.’ There was something in his voice that calmed me, reassured me of its truth. Even so when the moon caught his eyes they looked wild, fiery. Moving closer I put my rod and fish to one side and placed an arm beneath his. As I did so I became aware of the horrid stench that came from him. Getting to his knees he pulled himself up and the reek of alcohol threatened to make me sick.
He placed a hand on my shoulder ‘Thank you Laddie. Could you find my stick down there?’ He pointed to the long grass in the ditch.’

Handing it to him he asked, ‘Will you see me to my door? It’s not far.’
Knowing that no-one would be this way until morning I left my rod and fish by the trackside and let him lean on my shoulder all the way back to his bothy. He talked as we walked ‘I don’t know your face, you don’t have a village face’ he said between groaning at the pain his movements were causing him. ‘I’m Betty Doran’s son’ I said.
He stopped in his tracks ‘A Dorans!’ He exclaimed ‘Now there’s a family to be proud of! Black Watch! Heroes of Burma, Palestine and Indo-China!’. I knew vaguely what he was referring to as Grandad had been someone famous in the Black Watch regiment and had been decorated so many times he needed two large wooden boxes to keep his medals in.

As we approached his door he beckoned me to enter. ‘I dunno sir’ I said ‘I don’t think I should’.
‘Fear not young Dorans, I simply need some water for my head. If you fetch me it from the bowl in the kitchen, I’ll keep you no longer’. He lit up an oil fired lamp which stood outside his doorway and pushed open the door, ‘See just through there’. Peering inside I could see the bowl by a large copper tub, which he used presumably as a sink. He turned left into a room and was gone leaving me with the decision to make. Quickly I made my way toward the bowl but as I did so I could feel my feet sinking deeper into the floor, it caused no small alarm in me. Looking down I could see that his bothy had no carpets, instead were layer upon layer of empty Hessian potato sacks. Fetching the bowl I made my way carefully to the other room and found him seated by the oil light. It seemed to me his wild eyes burned brighter than the lamp. ‘Here sir’ I said.
‘Thank you laddie, I should have known a Dorans would never desert a needy soldier’. His tone was pleasant, his voice warm and mellow and I stopped feeling so terrified.
‘Why do they call you Tam the Herd?’ I asked, as he dipped his hand in the bowl of water using the sleeve of his jacket to rub it over it his head.
‘After being a soldier in the First World War I became a Shepherd hence ‘the herd’. Your Grandfather knows well of me. Many a day we have remembered the fallen at the Greenhead Tavern’
With all the innocence of youth I asked ‘Why do you live like this?’
He pulled on his beard and his wild eyes looked upward and he gave a pained expression. ‘Maybe you’re grandaddy will tell you’ He said.
‘Please, can’t you tell me Sir?’
His wild eyes fixed themselves firmly on me, but his voice remained calm, his gruff tone dropped an octave, ‘I fought in the war to end all wars Son. I watched the flower of two countries fall beside me. I saw things that I prayed to God would never happen to ones like yourself.’ His eyes began darting around the gloom ‘When it was over I came home to Scotland from France and with the promise of peace and prosperity I built this little house, married a fine lady, a fine, fine lady, and had three strapping sons of my own.’
I was about to interrupt saying ‘that doesn’t explain anything’, when he raised his hand to quell my words. ‘Angus, Fraser and Stuart are my sons, three more beautiful and strong men you will never meet. Oh what possessed me? Oh what posessed me?’ The spaces between his words filled with pain and the words themselves formed questions, his eyes continued their hurried glancing as if looking for answers. Once more he turned to me and there was no mistaking the tears filling his eyes. ‘The evil that filled Europe returned and once more my stock Laddie, my stock rose to the call. My laddies, my beautiful laddies.’ The tears were flowing freely and he reached to hold my shoulder. ‘I sent them to war and they never came home’. As the words left his mouth he pulled me tighter and howled like a hurt fox. I didn’t know what to do. I started to cry.

In some small way, for a brief moment in time, I hope however fleetingly, he felt like one of his laddies had come home.

Ben

Ever had something really precious in your hand? Meaningful? Something which in your eyes is perfect? Ever had that thing broken or disfigured in some way, to the extent that it can never be recovered? I guess we all have at some time or another and only one word can sum up what we feel - ‘loss’. That loss brings with it feelings of distress, anguish, pain and suffering. As children we approach our future bright eyed and bushy-tailed, full of optimism, and there’s little that cannot be recovered or repaired should we encounter loss along the way. In our minds there is nothing that ‘can’t be put right’ further down the line. As we develop and age we begin to appreciate that not everything we ‘lose’ can be recovered, can be repaired, and the first pangs of distress set in. It affects different people in different ways and is something which can truly be referred to as ‘character forming’. We never fully expect or prepare for loss, not in the same way that we expect or prepare for gain. So you make it big in Sports, or business, you reflect upon it and realise that you were prepared for it because you worked for it, it is in fact your due return…gain therefore is not as character forming as loss because the character which produced gain was already inherent in the person, choices and objectives of the successful one. Loss is usually unexpected, distressing and demands an immediate response which has not already been prepared for or scripted.

In a bid to carry them through loss many people turn to God or religion and ask ‘why?’. Many others develop a hard surface in an effort to cope with the crushing weight of loss and use that tough exterior as a shield for the rest of their lives. Many yield under the pressure and become shadows of the person they once were or could have been…..

I was thinking how ‘loss’ has affected me, what it has done to me. I’ve lost much in my life, two wives (and all the emotional bonds this implies), children, relatives, friends, the roof over my head, dogs, books, clothes, Cd’s and Vinyl, musical instruments, businesses, career, stability, respect, my mind, my health, my way, and I have wept at witnessing the loss of others - Lockerbie, Dunblane, 9/11 to name but a few….and oh the deep yearning, the very real sense of loss, the distressing reaching out to find answers when all is silent. Some of us call for the intervention of Angels, of God, of a new earth and new times, some of us despair. But what of Angels? What of God? What of eternal life and no pain, no suffering? What of them?

As we feel the wretchedness of the ‘human condition’ we should remember that God, the Angels and any other heavenly being, lives in an infinite universe. There is nothing that time can’t cure, repair or recover. Poor Sisyphus some say….I say he is one God who truly knows what the human condition is, the human condition is sublime, as humans we can feel what no other creature can feel, we can understand through death what it is to be ‘real’, to be alive, to be human….there is no creature in the Universe like us. We are the apex of all…..Through suffering we will appreciate joy, through injustice we will fight for justice, through pain we will revel in pleasure, through senselesness we will make sense of the world around us….through loss we shall gain from all we do….Sisyphus does not push alone and when the stone rolls back down the hill, I imagine he has a wry smile on his face. For however fleeting a moment a God gets to know what it’s like to be human….and he yearns to be one.

We stepped out of the hotel foyer and into a Scottish winter wonderland. The cold, crisp air nipped at our cheeks as we looked up at Edinburgh’s castle, suspended as if by magic high in the air. All around us market stalls bustled with shoppers, a Ferris wheel turned and skaters carved their pleasure in the ice. Her hand held in mine we wandered almost aimlessly, soaking up the atmosphere, allowing every illuminated tree, streetlamp, fun fair side-show to dazzle our eyes with their brilliance. I’ve always liked Edinburgh. On nights like this it was easy to understand why. I’ve never thought of it as home though. Indeed home for me has always been Edinburgh’s great rival city Glasgow, but the distance between her and I has been so great she probably wouldn’t recognise me.

A chain of thought emerged as Lucy browsed amidst the stalls. ‘What is home?’, ‘Where is home?’, ‘What does home mean?’

Leaving Lucy to delight at the traditional market I started to think it through. Glasgow for all her flaws, made me feel safe. Knowing every street, back alley and the nuances of the natives makes you feel ‘part of it’, whether she’s an angel or a vulture her wing closes protectively around you at the first sign of threat from outside. ‘We’re all Glasgow’s children’ is an oft heard expression on those streets and it’s true. Wherever I have gone, travelled, wherever I found myself I always felt that Glasgow looked after me, she was the one I could return to if the pressures of life and love became too great. As I wandered Princes Street in Edinburgh the realisation that this was no longer the case hit me. For years I’d been wandering like a man haunted, vulnerable, lost, no fixed abode. Should I return now I would be a stranger. I’d been away too long, yet not long enough to forge an allegiance with anyone or anywhere else. I was dispossesed, metaphorically homeless and maybe that’s even worse than being literally homeless. We all need something to point to and say ‘home’, we all need to know that there’s something covering our back, we all need to know that when we fall there’s a place of safety, security, warmth and unquestioning, unconditional love to return to, something which will embrace you before bidding you hush and rest easy for the night. A fortress, a protector, a lover, a friend, an ear, a voice, shelter from the storm, and it struck me there and then that for too long I had none.

‘What do you think?’ Lucy’s voice called to me. Holding aloft the most bizarre wooly hat she could find on one of the stalls she waved it and ushered me to try it on. Catching the mischevious smile and the glint in her eye I acquiesced. Beneath the Castle pallisade, beneath the dark night sky, beneath the moon and the stars a new realisation hit me. Looking deep into her eyes it was oh so clear……I’d found home.

The sound of London waking rattled at the hotel window. Cars, buses and the umistakable sound of Hackney cabs slipped between the curtains. Time to arise. On the bedside cabinet lay the remains of Blueberries and Italian Chocolate I’d bought for her the night before. In my mind I could still see the smile on her face. Letting my feet hit the carpet I headed for the coffee pot and tried shaking my head awake. As I flicked the switch on the kettle I looked over to where she lay and started thinking…..

Moments and memories fade, so much of life is fleeting, almost ethereal and ‘just’ out of reach. Material ‘things’, posessions and even people flicker in and out of your life like a faulty light bulb….light then dark, on then off, in then out, here then gone. Where are your friends now? I don’t mean the friends who recently lit up your life, I mean the ones from childhood, the relatives who have now made themselves distant relatives, the guests at your wedding, the neighbours who swore they’d be there for you whatever happened? What happened to the loves, lovers and laughter that blazed a trail like a comet in older chapters of your story only to burn out and fade once more into the darkness? Where are they now? Can you even remember them? What were their names? And those that you do remember - do you know where they live? Has life been an illusion, an act, smoke and mirrors? Has it followed you? Does it all still take an interest in what happens to you? Does it care? Or are the accumulated memories of a lifetime simply that - memories, like a Kodak snapshot, an image, an artefact, a reminder of what once was but no longer exists? Can you even recall the images or in which album they reside? So much you’ve gone through, the good, the hard, the insufferable, the joy, the pain, the agony and the ecstasy……and yet it all seems so hard to recall, so distant, so far away, another place, another time. None of it is here, none of it is now and with the exception of your children none of it is tangible.

The sound of the switch flicking off on the kettle startled me back into reality….pouring the coffee I walked to the side of the bed and sat down preparing to wake her gently.
‘Lucy’ I whispered. As her head turned to look at me her hair slipped gracefully from her face and a sleepy smile spread warmly.

Some things will never fade, some things will never die, some memories will live forever.

Apart from the fish, it was my six year old daughter Nicola’s first ever pet. A brown and white hamster which she uniquely named ‘Hammie’.
‘Hmmm’, I suggested ‘Sure you don’t want another name like Ecclesiastes or Hamish the Hamfisted?’ My attempt to infiltrate her mind and get her to answer questions failed miserably as she looked up at me and said,
‘No Dad, it’s Hammie.’
We didn’t have a proper cage so I cleaned out the goldfish tank (The fish had died when she fed them cornflakes and felt tip pens, it was three days before I noticed).
We couldn’t have a dog as we lived in a block of flats with very little greenery or space for such an animal. A hamster seemed the perfect compromise. And so she was charged with the responsibility of caring for an animal.
Three weeks later he was dead. Perfectly stiff, legs pointing perfectly heavenward, perfectly dead.
‘I see he didn’t have much in the way of water Nicola’ I said as I examined the scene like a forensic scientist looking for clues.
‘They don’t drink water Dad’
‘Oh, what do they drink?’
‘Coke’
‘Hmmm, I see, Coke eh? Is that with a straw or just straight from the glass?’
‘Don’t be silly Dad, of course from the glass.’ after her rebuke to me she asked, ‘Will he go to heaven today?’
Now there are sometimes as a parent when you put your foot in it, sometimes when you should just keep your mouth shut, had I made the connection between ’six’ years old and ‘heaven’ as well as ‘today’ alarm bells would have been ringing…but oh not for me…I saw the chasm and tumbled headlong into it. ‘Of course he’ll go to heaven, he’ll go this very day, I’ll send him there.’

And so I briefly explained the way of all things as I turned the last litle mound of earth over Hammie in our back garden. ‘Rest in Peace Hammie’ I offered with all the solemnity of saying farewell to a dear friend.
‘He’s still there’ She said pointing, ‘He hasn’t gone to heaven’. Then the tears.

Now I tried, believe you me I tried everything, I used theology, theosophy, philosophy and even Bambi in a bid to explain things but she was having none of it - Hammie was still under there, still dead, not in heaven. I had to think of something else and think fast.

I have a small sleight of hand trick I play with my kids…I can move something from one hand to the other quicker than the eye can see and in a bid to ease her distress I resolved to dig him up once more, determined that I would ‘throw’ Hammie to heaven. With a little bit of improvisation my sleight of hand should have been able to do the trick.
He was still encased in his little coffin of an inner tube from a toilet roll as I dug him back out with a spoon. She had been right, he was still there, still dead. Unseen by her I had loosened my shirt cuff and prepared my sleeve to receive Hammie. Holding him out in his little coffin I said something like ‘Oh God we commend this little hamster into your care’ and swung my arm heavenward and whilst doing so slid the inner tube inside my sleeve. At that very instant I realised Hammie had shot out of the tube and really was making his way heavenward. She watched as he flew and rose before tumbling back down at our feet with a thump. More tears.
‘I forgot to ask God to open the door Nicola…Sorry darlin’…silly Daddy’ I said as I picked him up ready to try once more. ‘We commend wee Hammie unto you God so OPEN THE DOOR!’ I yelled as I once more went through the routine, I felt the roll slip inside my sleeve only this time I glanced quickly at it to check that Hammie was safely tucked up inside, he wasn’t there. ‘Yeah you did it Dad! You did it!’ She yelled as I stood there wondering where the hell he was. ‘You really did it Dad!’
It was a moment I’ll never forget, the day I really did send a hamster to heaven, I’d reached out my arm to God and God had quickly slipped his hand down to mine and snatched wee Hammie upward. I felt so good I thought about making something special for tea! ‘C’mon Nicola let’s go inside, Ice cream all round I think.’

A few months later I had a little party and invited the neigbours so as to properly introduce myself to them. Pouring the elderly man who lived directly above me a drink he rather fished around for something to say as though troubled. Eventually he found the words ‘You ever have any trouble with Hamsters down here?’ He asked.
‘Hamsters? Trouble?…What kind of trouble?’ I was genuinely surprised.
‘You know anything about them?’ he asked in hushed tones.
‘Not a lot’
Dimming his eyelids he scrunched up his face and said ‘They can fly you know’
Almost overfilling his glass I gasped ‘What?’
‘They can fly you know. Just a few months back I had my bedroom window open and one of the little buggers came flying in and landed on my bed…..I killed it with a lampstand.’

Poor wee Hammie, I hope he’s up there now getting the same laugh I do from the day we tried to bust him into heaven.

I was a wide eyed kid attending my first fun fair. On either side of me Mum and Dad held my hands. Dodgem cars, waltzers, rollercoasters and dive bombers whizzed and clicked in a flurried frenzy of sound and light. Red, yellow, blue, pop corn, ice cream and candy floss all jostled for my attention and into this spinning whirling panoply they let go of my hands and urged me just to ‘enjoy’. This was exciting, this was new, this was hitherto an adult world and although much of what I now saw before me was designed for kids it was unmistakably created by ‘big’ people. The sound of full throttle generators and pounding pop music simply served to re-affirm that notion. It was Glasgow’s annual winter fair at the ‘Kelvin Hall’ a venue so huge it is now a stage for world athletics. That night for me however, it was my winter wonderland.

Three hours later after riding the legendary ghost train ‘Transylvanian terror’ I stepped from the carriage ashen faced, shaking and bewildered.
Laughing at my appearance Dad asked, ‘Well how was it?’
‘A-a-a-amazing!’
‘Had enough?’
The smile of contentment on my face told him I was ready for home.
Together they once more took my hands and we headed for the heavy wood and glass Rennie-Mackintosh panelled doors. Closing them behind us the sounds of the fair stopped suddenly and the dark night was given over to trams and buses bustling by. A lone vendor stood out in the cold night air selling Helium filled ballons and Dad offered up what little he had left in his pocket, just so that I could have one. Holding it firmly in my hand we crossed the Great Western Road and waited for the bus home. To this day I don’t know how it happened, in my hand I had something I could treasure, something that would remind me of a real life pleasure. I lost my grip and no sooner had I done so than the string and balloon floated quickly out of reach. My parents looked up as I did to see it disappear into the dark sky. I felt so hurt, so crestfallen for allowing something so precious to slip away so soon after Dad had spent his hard earned money on it, something that meant so much to me.
Dad sighed, ‘Oh Ben. It just wasn’t to be son eh?’

I can see parallels with my relationships, with my marriages and with so much of the colourful, noisy and turbulent life I have led.
‘Oh Ben, it just wasn’t to be….’ But even now, to this day, I live in hope. You see, I believe my balloon is still up there high in the stratosphere where it can go no higher. It waits, it waits for the girl who went to the fair and no sooner did she receive a helium filled balloon than she let it slip from her grasp…..it will meet mine and together we will discover there is no higher place to be.

How do you explain or even describe true beauty or love? Is there a method or formula which can be applied, used to produce adjectives and superlatives? How can the indescribable be made manifest in our minds or hearts? We really are incredible creatures, every day many of us go through an experience for which there are simply no words, no definitions, no explaining and yet, we understand it in the fullest sense. How can this be so? Thinking on it I climbed into one easily defined pleasure of my own, my bath. Reclining slowly and gently into the deep water I allowed the heat to wash over me. Surrounded by the sweet smell of Lavender and Patchouli I let my eyes close and my mind wander…..

I could hear a sound in the air, quiet at first before rising in volume, a steady rhythmic sound which drifted through the warm air, it danced playfully around my ears calling for my full attention. Skipping it’s way into my body it found its way into my bloodstream, coursing through my veins and arteries before alighting in my heart, there it playfully pulled on every heartstring I had….

I was running to reach the source of the sound, I ran through alleyways, over fields, through sun scorched deserts and flooded plains. I ran through tunnels, dark nights, thunderstricken highways, past bridges, towers and tenements. With every step the sound grew louder. Drawn irresistibly, flags, banners, signs and wonders drifted bye as I raced ever onward to reach the origin of the sound. Every sinew in my heart tugged and strained to point the way, louder and louder the drum beat strain of my heart boomed the counterpoint of the melody being played out around me. Crashing waves and a crescendo of the sublime stopped me, breathless, panting. I looked through the storm, and there in a downtown doorway she stood, smiling, waiting.

There were no words necessary, and yet all became clear then, it was the irresistible, magical, mystical madrigal that is the song and rhythm of love.

How do you explain or even describe true beauty or love? You don’t, you simply listen.

Scotland has many places of mystery, beauty and enchantment, nowhere more so than here in the Highlands where sweeping glens and majestic mountains stand hand in hand on a carpet of heather and poppies. The heart of Scotland however, can be fickle. She’ll drop her guard for you in summer and yield infinite pleasures but by the first snows of winter she’s a hard and often cruel maiden. It’s a delicate balance of deep, foreboding, treacherous land and wondrous, gentle open space where the unwary traveller need not fear placing a wrong foot.

Wyvis is just one such delicate beauty, proud, aloof and awesomely beautiful, she rises thousands of feet in the air before sprawling herself lazily. In summer she hitches her skirt and dances the dance that has tourists clambering up her tresses to join her. During the warm months Hang-gliders, Para gliders, Botanists, Bird watchers and the plain and simply energetic can all be found atop her. Everyone has a reason to be there and in that I was no different. My reason however would be hard pressed to find a match up here, up here where the Eagles really do soar and the breath of Wyvis whispers sweet nothings.

Have you ever noticed the rhythm of love? Ever sensed the way it transforms all that lies before you? When everything that was once disjointed and fragmented suddenly pulls together in a dynamic and rhythmic dance that is so pleasing to the eye and heart. When the meaningless becomes meaningful, when the corrupt and vile is beaten into submission by truth, honour and justice. When the innocence and goodness of humanity, which was stillborn, is resurrected, given life once more. When, from atop a mountain the world in all its glory can be seen clearly…. Was that what brought me here? Had I sought out comfort in one as delicate as I? One who rejoiced in the warm glow of summer but who secretly dreaded the first cold blasts of winter? One who knew only too well of pleasure and pain? Spreading myself in the deep blanket of purple heather I closed my eyes and tried to both listen for and feel the rhythm of love. Softly like the beating of my heart it emerged, tranquil and constant. It grew louder in my breast before breaking free of the mere mortal me and firing upward it suspended itself in mid air. Borrowing the eye and wings of the Eagle I soared from my lofty peak, I swooped down low over the Scottish countryside gliding effortlessly across Oceans, towns, cities and states before alighting on her window ledge and there thanks to her I was able to do what had been my reason for climbing proud Wyvis in the first place. There, albeit for a moment, I glimpsed the beauty of her as she lay sleeping and my outspread wings pressed gently on the pane.

Dark was falling and as I stood up I beckoned Wyvis farewell. The sweet smell of crushed heather drifted pleasantly in the air, how long had I been lying there? How long had I been sailing and soaring to where she lay? Down beneath my feet in the fields Wyvis wore as shoes, I could see the last of the Hang-gliders land. A thought popped into my head ‘To truly fly, who needs tubular steel and nylon?’.

Ben

Row upon row of dark foreboding tenements lined my life as a child. Glasgow, the Mother city, held her kids close and in so doing almost crushed the life out of them. Angels, devils and everything in-between could be found there. Opressive smog filled clouds and the sound of work sirens filled the air, beneath it all, men and women trudged their weary way to Iron works, shipyards, factories and all manner of places that made the industrial age a revolution. From my high vantage point of a single end tenement on Saracen Street I’d watch them mill around every morning. Beggars weaved their way between them pleading for money, men singing for coins, women with blackened faces sold matches and newspapers on the street corners. Windows across the Street covered in white sheets signalled another death had taken place amidst the squalor and anguish that true poverty brings. Most probably another child gone to meet the maker from choking to death on the pollution that rained down incessantly on us. Six years old and from the window a simple glance told me that something was wrong, people shouldn’t have to live like this. From our only bed, in our only room, in our only affordable bulding, my father and mother and three sisters started to wake, Dad noticed me first,
‘Have you washed Son?’, I shook my head. He smiled ‘You need to wash’.
‘But the water’s freezing cold Dad’ I protested.
His head bowed and he looked thoughtful, I had no idea how much that observation probably pained him, poor man couldn’t provide his kids with hot water.
‘Still need to wash, here I’ll help you’. Carrying the big water jug over to the sink unit he found a bar of carbolic soap and proceeded to scrub my back and neck. The cold water stung as he wiped it over me with a cloth and I remembered the sensation was similar to the belting with the tawse the teacher had given me only a day before. The weals were still visible on my outstretched arms. Dad washed my arms and as he did so he spoke ‘Mum said you had to be belted at school yesterday what did you do wrong?’
‘The twelve times table’ I said
‘You got it wrong?’ Dad asked with genuine surprise in his voice.
‘No I did it right Dad but we’d been asked to do only up to the eight times table and I wrote them all up to twelve and teacher said I had ideas ‘above my station in life’ so belted me’ I could feel Dad digging the cloth harder into my skin.
‘Above your station eh?’
‘Aye, I got twelve of the belt, one for each times table I had written’
My three sisters lined up naked waiting to get a chance to wash but Dad hadn’t finished with me yet ‘And you did nothing else to warrant being belted?’
‘No Dad, I had finished up till eight quickly so I thought I’d let Mr Maclean see I knew my tables and carried on to twelve.’ Dad threw the cloth in the sink and picking me up carried me to the edge of the bed ‘Get your clothes on Son’ It was clear it was a command and not a request. Mum had heard the conversation and asked Dad ‘You’re not going to do anything silly are you?’. Dad said nothing but ushered me to dress quickly.

Five minutes later I was hand in hand with Dad down on Saracen street and being whisked along the road at a frantic pace. My little school cap had to be held in my hand as we were walking so fast that it kept falling off. I was panicking a little and cursing my Dad because I knew something bad was about to happen. I hated him for this, he was clearly going to cause a scene. Arriving at the School gates Dad realised they were locked and started to pace around in front of them.
‘You point out Mister Maclean when he gets here Ben’ He said. Through the crowds waiting for trams and buses I could see Mister Maclean approaching Possilpark Primary School from the East and my heart sank, I knew Dad was fired up and it worried me.
‘That’s him’ I said pointing him out almost reluctantly.
He smiled as he walked past us both before Dad stopped him in his tracks with a punch to the face. It sent him flying and landing on his arse I could see blood start to pour from his nose. My Dad stood over him and pointing toward me he screamed at the top of his voice ‘His name is Bernard Goodwin and his ’station in life’ is wherever he wants to fucking well go and it is your duty to get him there. Not to beat children into submission!’ I’d never heard my Dad talk like this before, never seen him so angry.
Grabbing my hand once more he marched me off back down the street and all I remember is promising myself that if ever I was a Dad, I was going to be just like this one….he was awesome.

When I was a kid my parent’s scrimped and saved before purchasing an old upright piano. It always struck me as bizarre that four kids, two parents and only two rooms to disperse them in should have to compete with this old upright for space. Why did they buy it? Neither played piano. One Sunday morning it all became clear, ‘Ben you’re going to piano lessons, we’ve arranged a tutor for you and you’ll be at her house every sunday morning.’
I poked at my gerbills with a pencil and thought ‘Shit’.

Five years later at the ripe old age of twelve I had learned many things from my tutor Miss Forsyth, the most important lesson being that her legs were most definately worth staring at. ‘Ah one, two, three, four, ah one, two…..’ she would call aloud as I played and I swear that her numbers tailed off as she neared an almost orgasmic state listening to your’s truly thumping out Beethoven.
‘Can I please play Rock ‘n’ Roll?’ I’d ask.
Tapping me on the head with the ruler she used as a baton for timekeeping she’d ask ‘Did Beethoven or Mozart play ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll?’
I’d lose interest and go back to looking at her legs again. You see her piano was so highly polished that when she sat beside and behind me I could see right up her skirt in the reflection on the wood. So many times she must have thought I was a poor student who simply couldn’t keep a tune in his head…little did she know I was distracted.

Back home I’d play what I had learned to my parents and they seemed satisfied with five years of progress. One afternoon however I hit a note on the piano and no sound emanated from within…I played it again with the same result. Starting at the lowest note I played each key and noticed that three notes in total wouldn’t play. Lifting the lid from the Piano I looked inside and deep amongst the hammer’s and piano wire I could see my two gerbills nesting contently. Rushing to their cage I realised that I had left the door open and they had obviously sought a new home inside my piano. Switching back to the Piano, I looked at the hammers and realised they had eaten their way through them to make bedding for their little nest. So deep inside were they that there was simply no way to remove them. I couldn’t tell my folks as they would kill me. So for weeks on end I played only tunes which didn’t contain the missing notes. Things got worse however and more keys disappeared, soon it was becoming impossible to play so many tunes, so many songs. I guess on the rare occasion that I pressed a key and heard an ‘Eeeek’ as the hammer inside walloped a gerbill, I felt some kind of justice had been done.

The fateful day arrived of course when Father asked if I could play to him the latest I had been taught. I couldn’t think of one single tune or song that didn’t have a missing note on my piano…I gulped loudly and with trembling hands began to play Moonlight Sonata….I hurried over the missing notes as quickly as I could before father asked ‘What was that?’
‘It’s a new version of Moonlight Sonata’ I offered.
‘I see’ he thought aloud….’One with notes missing?’
‘Miss Forsyth says I should play those one’s quietly’.
‘Ben there’s quietly and ‘missing’.’

I gave up the charade, I told him how something which was beyond my control had left me with missing notes and explained how I could no longer play certain tunes and all because the gerbills had hatched an escape plan. I was grounded for months.

You know, although I went on to became a guitarist, I’ve never forgotten that incident and how sad I truly was that some of the finest pieces of music escaped me because I simply couldn’t play them on a broken piano. I was thinking about it the other day as I sat with my guitar. I also thought about how my wife had created an ‘escape’ plan to end 16 years of marriage…and it struck me that even now, on my guitar, there are some tunes, some songs, I simply cannot play.