That Was the Wick That Was

 That Was the Wick That Was

Bodham Lighthouse

The very north of Scotland, like the very south of England, has an allure. Somewhere I have felt impelled to visit. I could be pretentious and say it must be the Celtic blood coursing through my veins but it’s just a yearn for travel I have embodied over the years since I lost my partner Sue, my better half, in 2014. Each one of us has a thread through their ancestry which if one takes the time to discover, makes us all basically a band of gypsies. How many have a true ancestral line that stretches back centuries, aligned to one single area, be it a village, town, county, or country? The Smith line takes us through Shropshire, South Wales, Jersey, Normandy. A french connection back as far as the 15th century, and a name more exotic than Smith. Daubert.

Mick & Laura

Be that it may, in August 2019 I found myself travelling by train to Peterhead, north of Aberdeen for a close friend’s 70th birthday. Mick Thoirs hailed from ‘Peterheed’ and was heading home with his family to celebrate both his birthday and to visit a Lifeboat housed in the Local prison. A lifeboat in which his grandfather had been skipper way back during the war years and had subsequently ended up in a Northern Ireland knackers yard where it had been laid to rest for years awaiting salvation. To their credit Peterhead council heard of its plight and brought the vessel home to where it belonged. Granddad Thoirs would surely have chuckled had he have known his beloved boat would have its final resting place in one of the toughest penal institutions in the kingdom.

Mick and his wife Laura very kindly invited me along and a wonderful weekend was spent with their extended family. To make it even more exciting, we stayed in a lighthouse at Bodham on the outskirts of Peterhead. Which brought some symmetry to the occasion when I told them tales about my great granddad being a lighthouse keeper on Jersey at the beginning of the last century.

The birthday weekend over I caught the bus back to Aberdeen to get the train to Inverness for my continuing journey north to eventually end up at John O’Groats. The northern most outpost in the UK.

The trip over to Inverness took longer than I expected with two changes, one at Dyce airport from which a connecting bus then took us to Inverurie where along with fellow travellers I had to wait half an hour on a deserted station platform with very little shelter in pouring rain. The journey was interesting though with some great views of the Scottish Highlands, passing through towns with names that were familiar from watching the Scottish F.A. Cup football results on the TV teleprinter when I was a youngster. Nairn, Forres, Elgin, Keith, Huntly. 

The Scotrail train arrived late in the afternoon at a damp and dismal Inverness. Checking my street map, I decided it would be wiser to get a cab rather than ramble aimlessly in a direction I wasn’t even sure of. I normally do this wherever I go. Ramble aimlessly, before hailing a taxi. And getting ripped off! The driver in question this time headed off in a westerly direction, along a dual carriageway which seemed to take an age. I was booked in a hostel which I realised was just outside the town but going by the journey this guy was taking me on, I thought I was heading back to Aberdeen! I was watching the meter tick over. Just as it clocked up a tenner we arrived. The hostel was new, isolated, impersonal, no one around. Finally a goatie bearded student chap booked me in and gave me a key and pointed me in the direction of my ground floor room. Thoughts of relaxing for the night with my feet up watching the tele soon vanished when I discovered there was NO tele! The room was tiny, as was the bed. Barely room to put my hold-all anywhere I decided as it was still early evening, albeit still pissing down, to have a shower and get out to find a pub. Hopefully nearby. Thoughts of a shower went the same way as the tele! There wasn’t one! Not even a bar of soap or a towel. I thanked the lord I was only staying the one night!

Stepping out into the night I spotted a bridge in the distance which crossed over the dual carriageway the taxi driver had taken me along. I headed over and figured that drive had added another mile on the trip. The city centre was only a mile away from this point. Well, you learn. 

Walking through a housing estate and on to the main road there was a pub, a Beefeater called The Auld Distillery. There was only a handful of punters. Two playing pool. A couple of pints and reading a newspaper I found lying on the table was a perfect way to chill after a hectic day.

Wick

Next stop on this tour was Wick. I caught the train for this outpost just after midday the following morning. Couldn’t believe it was going to take four hours but it promised to be interesting. It didn’t let me down. Through towns and cities, lochs and mountains, could think of worse places to travel. Throw in a few distilleries, small hamlets. Makes a trip like this very pleasurable. Arriving in the old fishing port of Wick I once again checked my map, decided it wasn’t that big a place so headed off in the direction of the harbour and where I hoped I would find my Harbour View Hotel. Had to be luxurious with a name like that I guessed when booking it.

The Harbour View Hotel

Walking past a cafe I had a change of mind and entered to ask if someone could point me in the right direction. A couple passing time over a coffee asked me if they could help. I told them I’d just landed and was booked into the Harbour View Hotel which is where I was trying to find. They immediately looked blank, conferred with each other and then the guy said, ‘not sure of that one but I’ll take you down to the harbour to see if we can find it.’ That was very nice of him but it did arouse my suspicions. I said it was ok, I’d find it but he insisted he’d drive me down. Leaving his missis behind to sup her cuppa! Had to smile at that. Thanks I said. His missis smiled too so she obviously wasn’t bothered.

How friendly I thought! I’ve always felt the further north you go the friendlier people are and this only went to confirm my preconceptions. We drove down the hill towards the harbour and I’m keeping my eye open for some grand sort of maybe old salubrious type of building. Nothing of the kind to be seen and the only establishment, ‘overlooking’ the harbour was a downtrodden wreck of an abode advertising ‘fine ales’. Apparently a pub. Looked derelict to me but my friend suggested it might just be the place! ‘I think they have some bedrooms above it” he added almost in embarrassment for his town.

‘So here I am’. Nothing else resembling a hotel around here so I went in. Indeed it was a pub. ‘Ah, Clive!’ the guy behind the bar greeted me, taking me completely by surprise. ‘Ah, yea’ I replied. ‘I’m looking for the Harbour View Hotel”. ‘You’ve found it’ he said triumphantly. The one customer keeping him company perched on a stool, glanced round. ‘This is it’ he assured me. The guy behind the bar turned out to be the Landlord, and hotelier. ‘You having a drink?’

‘Er, no thanks. I’d like to get to my room first and settle in etc first if that’s ok’

‘Ok, alright, I’ll get you your key.’

Whilst he did this I looked around the bar trying to spy a door that would probably lead to the staircase. There wasn’t one which had me puzzled.

I’ve been in some dives, which I don’t mind at all. Grimy, scruffy bars, minging places but this one took some beating! Whilst I’m considering this the landlord returned, ‘come on, its this way’ he said joyously, and took me outside, around the corner, down a back alley littered with debris, discarded cans of paint, buckets, ladders, boxes, stones, bins, and there it was. The entrance. A windowless wooden door with a dodgy lock and hinge, looking more like a secret hideaway than a hotel entrance! He led me up some rickety stairs, across the landing where there was a sideboard that had probably been there since the 50s, with a kettle and the obligatory dish of tea bags and sugar sticks, and introduced me to my room. There were three bedrooms and a communal bathroom. My expectations were growing lower by the minute. For all the state of this place, the bar included, the Landlord seemed well satisfied with his establishment. ‘We have two SAS men staying tonight’ he told me with pride as if to say ‘if it’s good enough for them....’ Did seem a friendly enough chap I had to concede. And I did get his point.

Wick harbour

My room was on the small side in which was crammed a double and a single bed. Negotiating around them was like tackling an obstacle course. Two windows gave me a view of the ‘High Street’ and the corner of the harbour. Not a lot to see out of either. There was a television, high on a bracket in which I had to crane my neck to watch. As the landlord explained the house rules and lay out he saw me eyeing quite a large damp patch on the ceiling. ‘Ah, yeah, we’ve had a leak in the roof’ he said with just a hint of discomfort, ‘I’ve been meaning to get it fixed. It should be alright though’ ....to which all I could say, rather meekly, was…’well I’m not living in the room I suppose...and as long as it doesn’t rain...’ at that he left.

God strewth, I’m thinking. ‘You come all this way..and you end up in a shit hole like this...how do I manage it?’

Time was getting on so I decided to discover the delights of Wick before it got too dark. Quick look around the harbour and then the town which didn’t take long, and I called into a hotel, a lot smarter than mine I hasten to add, and ordered a lovely dish of cod and chips. Well you have to don’t you. After all, reading some local history I found that Wick was the largest herring port in Europe at one time, sadly many moons ago. I could also imagine my hotel right on the harbour being a well popular drinking hole for the hundreds of fishermen who returned from adventures on the North Sea down the years. And my friend Mick Thoirs later told me he had spent many an evening here during his seaman days; “We called it Dodge City back then”. I could believe it.

The main priority of course was getting to John O’Groats of which Wick was basically a stepping stone. The only way from Wick to John was by bus as it turned out, and nowadays there isn’t a direct one, you have to go to Thurso first. So, if nothing else, it gave me the opportunity to visit another place I’m unlikely to re-visit.

It was grey and drizzling when I arrived in Thurso. With nowhere substantial to shelter from the rain, apart from a shop doorway, I took a short stroll to pass the time until the connecting bus to John turned up. 

Thurso was another famed fishing port but with the harbour a mile away and with the rain, I decided to stay and entered a newsagents, making out I was probably going to buy a magazine. 

The bus was on time and I eventually made it to John O’Groats, aware that I had been told what to expect, ‘there’s nothing there’. Well, I didn’t expect much and to my surprise, I found it remarkably similar to its opposite number at the other end of the U.K, Lands End. Why I should have been surprised I don’t know. Maybe 50, 60, 100 years ago these places would have been much different, less commercialised and certainly not tourist attractions. 

One thing that was different was that O’Groats had a small harbour, delightful too. You can get a ferry here to the Orkney Islands. Photographs were taken of the famous signpost indicating Lands End that away, a million miles or something. Hoards of people mingled around the view points which I found disappointing. I still like to think some places remain obscure in their isolation and I dream what it must have been like to sit here, as in Lands End, alone with no one around, peering out into the sea and wonder what is over the horizon.

No chance of that today. And apart from that, a mist descended to shut out any hopes of a view!

The bus to take away the tourists wasn’t due for two hours and I spent the interim period walking aver the cliffs, sitting on the grass in solitude. Before heading for the bus stop I bought a couple of shirts out of the shop. Plus of course a mug. A thing I do wherever I visit somewhere new! Having a cup of tea or coffee at home I can drift back into memory land and remember places as far apart as Budapest, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Cape Town, Copenhagen, Stockholm, that Welsh place with 20 odd letters in its name, Llanfair P.G. for short. Also Lands End, and now I will remember my brief stopover at the top of Scotland and the British isles.

Strangely, the return bus journey went direct to Wick, which was a pleasant surprise. Couldn’t figure out why you can’t go direct the other way but there you are. A bureaucrat in an office somewhere obviously thinks it makes sense.  

Whilst in Wick I also intended to visit the famous Pulteney Distillery but having a pint in my hotel, the landlord informed me the distillery was on its annual shutdown. Typical! Something to do with the time of year when the water is at its best, the barley too, or something. Not being a whiskey drinker I didn’t have a clue about how its made to be honest. But, I’m sure I’d have found it interesting. Alas, it wasn’t to be. I still walked over the bridge to discover where it is, in the old part of town called Pulteney, hence the name. Didn’t take much imagination to figure that one out!

From there I walked out of town to look for the football stadium of Wick Acadamey. Another thing I like doing, being a lifetime football fan. Obscure clubs and grounds fascinate me. I noticed on the trip to O’Groats a sign for Brora. Wick and Brora, both names I’ve seen in the Scottish Highland League. Considering the sparseness of this part of the country it made me wonder how or where they get the players from!

My last night on this brief trip to Wick was spent in the ‘cod and chips’ hotel and then Wetherspoons, possibly one of the smallest ones I’ve ever been in. 

I retired to my room, wondered if the SAS were still in town and drifted off.

It was back to Inverness next morning, and a hotel I had booked in the city centre near the railway station. One night only. Next day I was heading back to Aberdeen for a couple of nights before the train journey back to Peterborough, via Edinburgh, on the Sunday.

Checking in at the hotel was another odd affair, joined by a young backpacker, a Hungarian girl in her 20s (think she was Hungarian, couldn’t speak a word of English anyway), we waited by the door, pressed the bell a few times. No answer we both stood looking at the door wondering what was or wasn’t happening. Suddenly a voice came out of a speaker on the wall. Telling us to go down to a hotel a few doors down. We looked at each other, and I tried to explain in pidgin Hungarian we have to go… Looking confused and concerned I signalled to her to follow me. The door to this hotel was open. Ah success! Expecting to be greeted again we found there was no one here. Then I noticed a message next to the telephone on the table. Ring such and such a number. This was getting tedious. Christ almighty. Eventually I managed to talk to somebody who asked me my booking reference and was then told I was in room number 14. You’ll find a keycard in the room. With Miss Hungary standing behind me looking worried I informed the bloke on the other end about her predicament and he asked me to get her reference number. Somehow I explained this to her, I was beginning to feel like a translator, the bloke said, ‘she is room number 12’. ‘Follow me I said to her. Relief was palpable.

After that carry on I went out to explore the city. Hadn’t been here since 1999, excluding the other day! Lovely city it is. The weather was awful, lashing down but it didn’t stop me getting around. Dodging showers in brief interludes, respite in a pizza restaurant, I  had a pint in a bar then took a walk to the Auld Distillery, the pub I had enjoyed a couple of nights previously. 

Heading to Aberdeen for my next leg felt like the end of the journey. Two nights in the Station Hotel, which was a grand place, compared to what I had put up with so far, it was well situated for what I wanted to do. Adjacent to the harbour and the maritime museum. Next morning, Saturday, I had planned to got to Stonehaven by train but discovered it was better by bus. Stonehaven Station was well away from the seafront and with the incessant rain, there was no other way. Reason for going to Stonehaven was because I knew of some old acquaintances who had moved there years ago from Corby. Twins Margaret and Sally Cooper who I was at school with, and a girl, Mu Duncan who hailed from here but back in the 60’s was singer with a local group, the Invaders. Mu had called in at my house one day when I was working to buy the book. ‘Its Steel Rock and Roll To Me’. My wife Sue told me about her visit when I got home that night. But forgot to get her address! 

I had tried through various avenues to find all three but all to no avail. All the same I was curious about this place on the east coast of Scotland. I couldn’t have chosen a worse day. The rain never gave up. Walking around, taking photographs, it didn’t paint a great picture. Couldn’t help but think; “why would you move

here? Unless it is a hometown, homecoming or something.’

Stonehaven

I was beginning to feel I’d had enough by now and was looking forward to going home next day. Aberdeen didn’t impress me either. A city of grey buildings it was almost claustrophobic. 

It had been an eventful week or so. Apart from my adventures, the country, the U.K. had been deluged with storms for over a week, shutting down rail services, floods everywhere. So, what could go wrong?

The train left Aberdeen on time, the connection at Edinburgh for Peterborough also. Fine. Until we got to Newcastle.

Suddenly we were informed the train was terminating. Everyone had to get off. Confusion reigned. Looked like thousands on the platform wondering what was going to happen next. Half hour went by and then another train arrived. Packed with people which didn’t stop a stampede to get on. Railway staff tried to restore order, asking people to get off. It resembled a scene on the Delhi Railway. Turns out because of the delays all round the country, train drivers were all over the place, out of hours and there wasn’t a crew at Newcastle to enable the journey to recommence. Couldn’t make it up. An hour went by and then another train turned up. Half full and heading for London! Hooray!

An hour late, I was back on home turf, well nearly, I still had to get the bus to Corby which thankfully, was sitting there as I found my way across to the bus station.

I needed a pint, or three after all this. Funny sort of week it had been. Unusual to say the least!