Complete New Tales of Para Handy (11 page)

“They are going to Kilmun,” continued the Captain, “for that Mr Younger, the chentleman that mak's his money from the beer: he iss puttin' mair gairdens into hiss Benmore Estate and with the amount of rain watter that comes pourin' off the hill, he needs aal the drains he can get, poor man.

“Macphail wass suggestin' that mebbe he iss goin' to divert the watter to the brewery but then Dan iss of the opeenion that aal beer hass been wattered, exceptin' perhaps when it's his favourite stout.”

“They look an awkward cargo to handle,” I suggested, watching as another dangling, precariously-secured bundle came swinging inboard, and ducking instinctively as it passed just a few feet above my head.

“There iss worse,” said the Captain agreeably, “though at the moment I wud find it very dufficult to say chust what. But at least they are clean.

“And in any case, it's aal chust in the day's work for the shup. Drain-pipes for Kilmun: or whusky from wan or ither o' the distilleries,” he added emphatically and hopefully, — but I did not even offer to take the hint: “we can cope wi' it aal. If Dougie wass here…”

The Holy Loch cuts into the Cowal Hills just two miles north of Dunoon, the salt-water arm of a geological fault-line linking the estuary to Strachur on the upper reaches of Loch Fyne to the west. Between the Holy Loch and Strachur lies narrow Loch Eck, mirroring the steep and wooded hills which rise around it.

That freshwater loch, renowned as among the most beautifully situated of any in the country, also mirrors (in miniature) the attributes of its larger saltwater neighbours, for it boasts a modest passenger steamer service, provided for excursionists and round-trippers, by the
Fairy Queen
, a screw steamer little larger — though with much finer lines — than an ordinary Clyde puffer.

I was reminded of this on the occasion, some months after my encounter with Para Handy at the Paisley docks, when I came across the
Vital Spark
and the captain and his crew at Kilmun pier, where I had arrived aboard the steamer
Redgauntlet
on a Saturday morning, invited to spend the weekend on the coast with old friends who had taken a house for the summer.

Laid against the north side of the pier, the puffer was busily unloading a series of plywood boxes, little more than two feet square but as much as 12 or 15 feet in length. Dougie the Mate was operating the steam-winch with very considerable care, not to say delicacy, of movement. Sunny Jim, standing on a flat-bodied dray on the pier, guided the boxes as the jib swung them towards him, lowering and stacking them on the cart with as much concentration as if they had contained the very finest of bone china.

More surprisingly still, there was a goodly crowd on the pier to watch this process including, huddled together in a group, a number of distinguished-looking gentlemen — one even sporting gaiters — dressed in clerical clothing.

“My goodness, what sort of cargo is it you have today, then, Captain?” I enquired as Para Handy came over to pass the time of day, “for I'm sure the ship is as much at the centre of attention as if it was the Crown Jewels themselves, and the crew are taking as much care of it as if it was eggs!”

“Well,” he said, “conseederin' what the last cargo you saw us wi' wass, and that it wass consigned for Kilmun too, you could surely guess that it would be pipes. Chust pipes,” he said, and then added mysteriously, “but mebbe a raither special sort of a pipes.”

“Well, it's the first time I've ever seen pipes boxed up like that,” I said. “so it's not drain-pipes for sure. Lead pipes for a plumbing contractor, is it? They must be very particular about where they buy their raw materials.”

“Goodness me,” said Para Handy, “it iss not plain water pipes we have in the boxes, Mister Munro. For wance the owner hass managed to get the contract for a dacent cairgo worthy o' the shup. Wan that iss mair in keepin' wi' her style and her cheneral abilities.

“These here iss organ pipes — sent doon from Gleska, for the new unstriment they're puttin' in at the Kilmun Kirk along the road there.

“We brought down the wud and the metal and aal the rest o' the materials for the insides of it last week, alang wi' two men that are buildin' it, and then last night we came back wi' aal these fancy bits!”

It was a pleasure to see how the Captain glowed with pride at the distinctive cargo which had been in his care: and to reflect that, given the enthusiasm of all on board the puffer for what the engineer would have called a “good tune”, and the modest but nonetheless accomplished musical talents of Dougie and Sunny Jim, they were perhaps the most appropriate crew on the river to be entrusted with it.

“Ass weel ass these pipes for the front, and fancy carved wud screen-frame to hold them,” continued the Captain, “there iss two keyboards, I'm tellin' you no lee, two o' them nae less. It seems chust a waste o' time to me for I have neffer yet seen an organist wi' fower airms. But that iss not aal! For then there iss what the men that's buildin' it tell me are pedals for the man that plays it to use his feet on to get a choon!

“If they were to pit it in a side-show in wan o' the fairs you would surely get the public-at-lerge to pay their saxpences chust to watch it in operation: for the man that plays it must have aal the agility and cheneral sagiocity o' the India Rubber Man at Hengler's Circus and Carnival!

“Obviously none o' yer common-or-gairden harmoniums iss good enough for the folk at Kilmun. This is a proper fantoosh organ, the like o' them that you wud find mebbe in St Mungo's where the Gleska chentry go, or in Paisley Abbey where the Coatses come from, or in a Kirk that's beholden to Mister Carnegie for the occasional contribution.”

“Well, Captain,” I said. “You must remember that Kilmun Church has been under some patronage from the Dukes of Argyll for many years, and so maybe it is His Grace that is paying for it as a present for the congregation!”

And, reflecting that it was perhaps just as well that the crew of the
Vital Spark
were not of the persuasion of the Free Church of the Western Highlands, (for then the care bestowed on the instrument in their charge might have been somewhat less painstaking) I shook the Captain's hand and headed off towards my friends' lochside retreat.

I had the pleasure of attending the recital given a couple of months later in Kilmun Church on the occasion of the official inauguration of the new organ.

The historic little kirk was packed and the instrument, safely installed in the choir gallery above the main door of the building, was resplendent with its banks of gleaming pipes, its rich wood carvings and fretwork.

What I think nobody was prepared for — or could have even begun to be prepared for — was the splendid sound quality and sheer magnificence of the organ itself.

The audience sat in rapt silence as the church filled with the most sublime harmonies and melodies, the sheer power and depth of the bass pipes almost outshone by the daring virtuosity of the contrasting melodic stops, brilliant in their cascading ripples, their soaring scales and shimmering arpeggios.

After two hours in which the listeners were transported, as it were, to another world, the concert concluded — fittingly and properly — with the singing of that most inspiring of all the master-works of the Scottish Psalter, ‘Ye gates, lift up your heads on high' to the tune
St George's, Edinburgh
.

As the hushed crowd left the church and passed into the cool darkness, a sense of the infinite hung about the churchyard and the last soaring, triumphant notes of the great organ crescendo which had closed the evening seemed to hang on, still, in the silent night.

As I picked my way along the shore side of the churchyard wall, a dark silhouette — a familiar dark silhouette — detached itself from the trunk of a venerable tree which overhung the path, three other figures just discernible beyond it.

“I am gled they feenished with
St Chorge's
,” said Para Handy quietly. “Anything else would chust have been a let-doon.”

“I had not expected to see you here, Captain,” I said. “Why did you not come into the kirk?”

“I do not think that wud have been right, Mister Munro, for we are chust Brutain's hardy sons, straight from a day's work perambulatin' aboot the river, and in no' fit state to be seen in among the Kilmun congregation alang wi' aal the chentry.

“But we were prood to have brought the new kist o' whustles doon here, and happy to have had the chance to hear it played. There iss some chobs we value more than ithers…”

“…and there are some men to whom we owe a debt of gratitude for the care and devotion with which they carry out those jobs,” said a voice from behind us, and the Kilmun minister clapped Para Handy on the shoulder.

“We would all be very pleased, Captain, if you and your crew would come up to the Hall right now, and join us all for supper so that we can thank you properly.”

F
ACTNOTE

The Loch Eck steamer was for decades an integral and essential link in one the most popular of all the ‘round trips' on the Firth. Passengers sailed from Bridge Wharf down river and through the Kyles, then on to Strachur on Loch Fyne whence they transferred by coach or (later) charabanc to the head of Loch Eck, and thence back to the Holy Loch or Ardentinny piers for their return passage to Glasgow.

P
ADDLE
P
OWER
— This splendid picture captures the drama of a crowded paddler at full stretch. The steamer is one of the North British Steam Packet Company's Craigendoran fleet — Redgauntlet — referred to in the story about the Kilmun organ. She was built at Barclay Curle's Scotstoun yard and launched in 1895. She is listing to port as the crowds line that rail to watch the steamer from which this photo was taken vanish astern. Note too the huge diameter of the steering-wheel on her open bridge, requiring two helmsmen to handle it.

The
Fairy Queen
, an 80ft vessel with generous saloon facilities for her patrons, was built in the upper reaches of the Clyde at Seath's Rutherglen Yard in 1878 and gave almost half-a-century of service before she went to the breakers in 1926.