So here we are again – sitting at the Nav Desk and we’re en route to Lossiemouth for the night, after spending 2 nights in Wick in the North of Scotland. We wouldn’t have chosen Wick for a longer stop, but a storm blew through and we thought it better to delay our departure for 24 hours (9 people pounding through Force 8 winds, which would have been on our nose – so we would have been tacking all the way here – just too many folks – and have I mentioned there are too many people on our boat?).
Wick is an interesting place! It became affluent on the Herring trade with a fleet of boats that would then follow the herring al down the coast. There are pictures of the three inner harbors teaming with boats. Not so now. Locally, folks talked about the silver barrels and the gold barrels – the herring and the whisky. This herring trade has all but vanished and with it the prosperity that came with it.

Now speaking of whisky – I took a walk up to the distillery yesterday morning – it was advertised to open at 10.00. Compared to the West Coast, this was a more workmanlike place in a part of Wick called Pulteney (obviously a prosperous place at one time – but not so much now). The ladies who worked in the Visitors Centre there were just lovely and the actual place inside was very nice. But I was greeted with “no tours available right now due to significant capital works being done” – well that was a disappointment! “But we do have the tasting – if you don’t mind drinking a little whisky this early in the day”

What is a man to do – as they say around here (on Tonic) – it would be rude not too! The young lady who conducted the tasting was knowledgable and very interesting. She and her partner and their 2 year old – were living in a mobile home on their woodland croft, which they’d just bought and upon which they would build a new little croft cottage. I guess she was late 20’s early 30’s and just splendidly interesting and what an adventurous thing for this couple to do. They’d moved from South West Scotland all the way to the North East Scotland in order to afford to buy some land and make a life. 

The Pulteney Whisky – “The Maratime Malt” was excellent and worth the pain of tasting it so early in the day. 

As a group and in order to occupy our day, we had thought about getting the train to Thurso – to the County Show, but the trains weren’t running because of a) Engineering Works on the track b) Industrial Actions by Scotrail employees – choose your answer. It wasn’t terribly clear which was the truth – and while the the Rail Station ticket office was manned (womanned actually), she suggested we speak to the bus drivers who were doing “the replacement service”. Of course she couldn’t offer assistance (because it was really industrial action and she didn’t want to be a scab) and as it turned out, neither could the bus driver. 

“There may be a bus there, but definitely not one back”. 

“May be a bus there – aren’t your the driver?” 

“I’m awaiting instructions about whether to go or not”

By the time I reached the station to find these things out – there was only Barclay and I amassed to go. With the benefit of no information at all, we agreed to  knock the plans for Thurso on the head do what any sensible person stranded in Wick should do – go to Wetherspoons for a pint. Incidentally – Wetherspoons dominate every secondary town in the UK – they really are everywhere and that doesn’t say much for the taste of the Great British Public!

Funny how things work out. I wouldn’t have thanked you for some alone time with Barclay, and here we were – thrown together – victims of these circumstances. I had a very pleasant couple of hours with him and started to understand what made him who and what he was. Firstly he is massively insecure, secondly he is massively insecure, and with a dose of insecurity thrown in for good measure. It’s a funny thing, but over a couple of hours I was able to hear his life story and really start to know him. Over the same period of time he learned precious little about me. You see – he didn’t ask any questions about me – but he did say after a couple of hours – he’d had the best few hours of conversation and he really valued my company! People who ask few questions, inquire little about other people, but who are happy to answer questions and talk all about themselves – well they might have a little issue there!

I didn’t mention that Barclay was the product of Barbadian Father and white English mother, who divorced early on in his life and no doubt he had been through some rough stuff. This didn’t seem terribly relevant at the time I first mentioned him, or so I thought. Going through some rough stuff in his upbringing doesn’t mitigates his lack of civility or the level of arrogance, but it may just explain it. Later on, on Saturday, he was racially abused by an ignorant looking idiot in a bar in Wick (there seemed to be a lot of them, based on my intense judgemental approach to life) and I understand he stood his ground and tried to explain to the guy why his behavior was inappropriate. As Barclay later said – he’d learned long ago that you can’t punch racism out of people (he looks more than capable of achieving that goal – at least temporarily). I don’t care about his other behaviors, he should not have to put up with ignorant people picking on the color of his skin as a point of differentiation and hatred and feeling they can freely express it in the form of an instruction to go back to where he came from (Harrow actually). Reading what is going on right now in the US – and especially with today’s news from Baton Rouge on top of the shocking going’s on in Dallas – I think we’ve all lost the plot and we need to wake up and realize that the level of intolerance and blame is out of control. Sounding like an earlier generation – I really do think that violent video games and instantly reported footage of violence on You Tube, and other content streamers is having a massively negative impact on the level of respect we have for life. The Internet is great for accessing information – but in the hands of divisive fools it is a dangerous breeding ground for spreading hate and you only have to take this blog as a fine example. My final words on the “Wick Incident” – Angry man of Wick – you’re a tosser.

Pip pip – more from Lossiemouth!