I am of course normally quite self-effacing. But I just could not resist giving this a larger audience. While on holiday recently in the Scottish Highlands I stayed for a night in Fort Augustus where I went to school.
(Whenever I go back I usually have a few beers with the ‘village boys’ with whom in earlier days we had regular fights)
Anyway I picked up this book called ‘Abbey Boys’ which has a nice picture on the front cover and is basically a re-write of the school magazines, which I cannot think anybody who did not go to the school would wish to read. And even I had a problem. Anyway here it is on page 153:
“Unusually early snow and frost upset the normal outdoor activities. For two weeks from 22 November organised games were impossible because of snow and ice. Sledging became the sport of the moment and produced two casualties. A. Drummond, trying to avoid some girls, ran his sledge into a fence and suffered a fractured arm. F.F. McGarity broke his arm too ( but with less gallant intent).”
Poor old Fraser McGarity. He must be the first casualty of tabloid journalism in my long and chequered career. I wonder what he did to get such a poor write up. Was he avoiding the boys? Or wait a minute, why was I avoiding the girls? Is there a hidden message here? Can I sue?
From what I recall of the incident there were three of us on the sledge, all lying flat on top of each other (well it was a public school) with me sandwiched in the middle so I could not dive off which is what I wanted to do. This incident was no doubt accompanied by screams of terror. The run was over a mile long on a public road down Glen Doe. No ‘elf and safety’. No sane person would do it. I spent the last week of school in Raigmore Hospital, Inverness.
I later started dating the canal keeper’s daughter one of the girls we tried to avoid (FA is on the Caledonian canal at the southern end of Loch Ness. Canal is to the left of the school. Her house is not quite in view but I could get there through the hedge, but once there did not get much past her knee).
The author of this book was my History and English teacher at prep school near Edinburgh. There is no similarity in styles. He was however a splendid chap I recall.
When did all this happen? Well long before my wife was born.
Apologies. This site will get back to reporting the real news when I have fully recovered the jet lag and re-adjust. I just liked the picture (above) ….and finally…
Elf and safety note: My brother who is a consultant engineer building farm buildings and dairies in the UK has to ask all his labourers if they are wearing the appropriate sun screen before picking up a tool, something I think we should introduce to Somchai in Isaan.
Yes, another brick in the bureaucratic wall, as they engineer a land fit only for Rupert Murdoch fans.I never once saw an Elfen Safety man anywhere near any of the construction sites, forests, estates or farms I worked on. Very few jobs like that left. Migrant labor is doing it all. Elfen Safety didn’t do much for the Solway Firth coclepickers either. It’s the final gasp of an ailing economic system anyway. Pretty soon we will all be back to digging upo the neaps and tatties for an existence. The idea you can run the UK economy on financial services alone is well past its sellby date.
I live next to an enclave of expat construction site Somchais. Their main problem most certainly isn’t the sunblock they use. They probably earn comparatively good money compared with their stay-at-home relatives. They misss most of it up against the wall, alienate the locals in the process and then spend the difference getting themselves out of clink over their drunken fights with their own kind
Brian: You might try dishing out some subblock Factor 100 and TLC! The cider farmers are all factoring up in Devon and Cornwall.
I fear that Natch wouldn’t interest them much. Those bottles of cheap alcohol are the poison of their choice. Shame! It would almost certainly be comparatively relaxing to have a bunch of scrumpy-heads over the fence