Holy Island, from Lamlash Bay on the Isle of Arran (recent pic)In the Summer of 1963, John Ellard and I went to the Isle of Arran in Scotland with my father and some of his friends on a fishing trip in one of those VW dormabiles where the roof folds upwards and out. We stayed at the little village of Lamlash, which is almost on the beach, and faces Holy Isalnd about 3 miles out to sea. Great place - I recommend the scenery.
Anyway, I can't remember John and I actually doing any fishing, but I do remember us singing "Twist & Shout" at the top of our voices inside the dormabile, which had just been released by the Beatles. Sadly there were no girls around to hear our beautiful singing voices. The week was rather uneventful except for three things:
1. John and I hired a rowing boat. We were supposed to stay within 100 yards of the beach, but that was a bit tame for us, so we rowed all the way across Lamlash Bay to Holy Isalnd, and landed safely. Then we walked around the entire permiter of the island on the rocks, which took most of the day and was about 5 miles around. On the north East corner of the island, we found the jacket and trousers of an RAF bloke - but no bloke, and no sign of him. We have wondered ever since why these clothes were just lying around on the rocks above the high water mark. We eventually got back to the rowing boat in the late afternoon and thought we'd better make a rapid row back to Lamlash. BUT boys being boys, we mucked about and then I think it was me who lost an oar, and the water current was so strong that the oar disappeared quite quickly. We looked around. We could see past Holy Island into the Firth of Clyde, which ran into the Irish Sea, which ran into the Atlantic. Oh heck! Luckily, my father had returned to Lamlash and found us reported missing and outside the 100 yards from the beach mark, so he got into a motor boat with his fishing friends, and they found us drifting around the south east tip of Holy Island. Phew! Nearly gonners.
2. We used to go on our hire bikes over the top of the bay to Brodick. The bike ride was a hard ride uphill, but a great ride down the other side. At Brodick, we bought ice cream, but another motive for going to Brodick was to secretly look for girls while my dad and his mates were fishing elsewhere on the island. Day after day we did this, but sadly no girls. I don't think we'd have known what to do with them if we found any.
3. We set fire to the dormabile. Now I have to say that we didn't mean it, but when my dad and his friends were having one or three amber fluids in the Lamlash Hotel, John and I decided we needed to eat, so we cooked up some bacon and eggs. But Dormabiles are not designed very well, and the curtains on the windows wafted over the gas ring with the draft coming through the open window - hence WHOOSH! It was quite scary for a couple of minutes, but we threw lots of water about the place and put it out. Dad wasn't too pleased when he came back to half-burnt curtains.
No comments:
Post a Comment