In the beginning there was the Modern Mistress. In the rural areas these became dominant. The stove-pipe would be held by a score of cubits of cement and would project through roofs. And the construction of the roof would vary according to the materials available at the time of construction, or according to regulations relating to dimensions and spacings at the allotted time. And the materials of the roof skin would vary from the quarried slate of Ballachulish or Easdale to the Eternit branded tiles which no longer contained an element of asbestos, as was the practice in former times.
But, for those who ventured further out from the environs of the burgh, passing over many cattlegrids, there were to be found ranges and boilers designed to run on any solid fuel. And peat was sufficient unto the needs of the Rayburn. But not of the Aga which was installed only in the stately houses of those who could deliver silver to the merchants in return for fuel. Some of these appliances could be adapted to run on heating oil which, in the latter days, was supplied free of Value Added Tax. As was the solid fuel equivalent. The cost of peat was an annual permit, which was cheap and your own labour, which was not.
But the German process, carried out in the vicinity of the city of Essen, which burned off slag and left potent nuggets, provided in these times the potency and longevity necessary to maintain the temperature in cast iron whilst their owners and benefactors were at lawful occupations. Or at recognised institutions of education. And this was named Anthracite and Extracite and Taybrite. And these fuels were supplied in sealed plastic bags in units of kilograms measured out on scales of approved make and type. And these would be inspected at regular intervals according to prescriptions laid down by local authorities. According to the guidelines also writ large by national authorities.
And merchants of the name of Ossian and MacIver thrived and prospered.
And the populations housed in Nicolson Road, in Morrison Avenue, in Stirling Square, these also thrived. Many went forth from there into the wider worlds of merchant navies, of hospitals, of hotel kitchens. And back out across the numberless cattlegrids, the rural populations also thrived. But the nature of the thriving, far from the city of Stornoway, varied according to a host of conditions. The furlongs of distance, out from the metropolis, being a major factor. As was war and rumour of war in the eastern extremities of the continent of Europe and in the maritime environs collectively known as the Middle East.
So every time the oil price went up you’d get a big rush for peat-permits.
Ranges and Agas, not so hot on peat, would be available for fifty quid a throw in the two-minute silence (Stornoway Gazette). And conversion kits for Rayburns would be available again, a grate and a riddle, for those who couldn’t remember which box they’d hidden the bits in, when the oil wick was installed after the last crises was over.
Thus the history of the late twentieth century, with particular relevance to the price of a barrel of oil, from under the desert or under the sea, could be accurately plotted by careful scrutiny of adverts for stoves in the SY Gazette. Sorry, OK, perhaps with cross-reference to the West Highland Free Press.
I didn’t move down to Garyvard. It was too big a step for a cove from town. Too big a one for me anyway and I think you know why. I couldn’t live in the house we’d done up for my olaid either, though that would have made more sense. It was in our joint names but Gabriele signed over her half-share on condition that I signed over everything at Number One Coastguard Cottages to her. That included the garage-library combo.
There was a chance of a place on Kenneth Street so I did the quick-sale thing rather than hold out till I found someone with a similar set of requirements to the olaid. The buyers probably ripped out half the alterations.
But I’m now strolling distance from the hoil and the wee Co-op. The arts centre is two minutes along the road so the movies are back in town. I might not be the only one with a desire to move back to the street I was born on. Well, I wasn’t born on the street but in a flat in a house on Kenneth Street. And I returned there.
Stornoway has the architectural integrity of the average Scottish cemetery. Dead centre of the town as they say. There are no planning requirements to install memorials which will chime with the proportions or visible finish of the neighbouring one. Therefore there is considerable interest in strolling to study the erections we’ve left behind. Down in Sandwick, you’ll find tall marble pieces with draped urns. Compact black granite slabs with a pleasing half-moon curve at the top and a gold anchor or rose. Root further back and there are horizontal slabs of slate, fenced with resilient wrought ironwork.
There’s also a few jumps in the skyline of Kenneth Street. The jail is quite classy now, with sympathetic larch or cedar cladding, left to weather. There’s plenty of glass but of course you don’t get to see the guys behind bars. It’s the upper storeys which have transparency. Like when the cannabis plants, kept as evidence in the cop shop, were lovingly nurtured by some cleaner and you could see how much they flourished and sprouted day by day as you passed them by. But you don’t get any hint of the guys in the cooler for a night.
The sergeant’s house is no longer that but it’s still there, a block along, after the intersection with the steep Church Street. It’s pebble-dashed, like a lot of the council houses. Then there’s the big car park and the big Free Church and the hall where you give blood. Next there’s a run of houses, stone under rendering. There’s a potted history of late twentieth century window design, with particular attention to long dormers in the roof.
But then there’s one house with proportions which look fair and original. Two sweet storm-windows ascend from a simple but elegant roof of native Scottish slate. The nails are probably sick, of course, because few people think of fixing slates with copper clouts, which will last longer than the zinc-coated clouts which will rust before the slate has been worn down visibly by hail and frost and the gusts that sweep and probe all of our roofs.
The profusion of chimney pots is a clue to the histories of shared occupancies of this town house. It would have been a merchant’s home, with its own community of offspring, aged relatives and servants. But when I viewed the interior of the house, there was a gas fire that looked cold, surrounded by a matt aluminium sheen installed at level two.
As the cailleach who sold sailors the string with the three knots of wind said, you men are never happy. You’ll be wanting more breeze so you can untie the second one. You’ll get as much breeze as you can take. But don’t dare even look at the third. So you know right then they’ll let the third knot go and they’ll end up back where they started.
And I’m saying, I hanker after a real flame and the top floor could take it. You can’t live with a fire that looks cold. And these days you can’t just install gas or solid fuel stoves without reference to the rulebooks. I thought of developing a hidey hole, warm and illuminated by natural light through the sweetest windows, thinking of Anna, installed here for visits, with a developing library all to herself when she’d come here for an overnighter. Though she hasn’t managed it yet.
But when I’d broken into the painted boarding that covered the fireplace and excavated the wide aperture in the stonework, I encountered a problem. After crawling my way upward, like the early Victorian chimney-sweep before the enlightened Mr Kingsley’s fictional discourse, I found a mess of plastic bags and loose rockwool and any shite that would stop cement from falling further. When I approached the problem from the opposing angle, and got up on the roof to install the new ceramic can, I found the gas vent went through the only viable chimney. I’d been in a similar situation once before.
The small incident is of course a reminder of the main lesson of history. Are you ready for it? All I’ve learned. We take a bloody long time to learn from the past and then we have to re-learn it all again. Chimneys. Builders. Things are not always what they seem.
SY, my friends, is clearly not the environment for Smith and Wellstood stoves, of oatmeal hue, running on peat. But it is pretty damn good for kitchen-ceilidhs. We’re only one street back from the seafront. After this morning I’m an honorary member of the International Fishwives Gossip Brigade. This distinguished unit didn’t in fact fight in Spain prior to ’39 but we certainly discussed it. And the present situation in the Congo did come up, along with a feasibility study into the installation of a wood-burning solid-fuel appliance.
So the retirement plan, if I could ever afford it, could be strolling round the hoil to pick up stray driftwood. I could build little stashes so it would get a fresh-ish water rainfall to take the salt out until the arrival of an easterly wind to dry it. And a flame is better than a telly. When it’s under control. The flame, I mean. The telly never is.
And probably won’t be, ever again. Unless there’s a return to the Westview (SY) and the West Road (FR) tradition of folk gathering in the same room, to watch the big game or the fight. Kitchens and living rooms all had flexible walls in those days. There was no limit to the number of folk you could squeeze in. I don’t think many modern homes have these, now.
But I’ll tell you what this town house does have. You don’t clock it from the outside, unless you’ve a strong neck. Let’s return to the fine detailing of the elegant storm windows. You don’t want to present too wide a span of glass to the SY elements. But there’s more to the design than a series of small panes. Above them there’s a hook, embedded into the stonework, anchored so that at the time of fixing there could be no doubt as to its strength.
The double bank of interlocking windows was at one time capable of opening right out to leave a surprising span of space. So that would be for hoisting in sails or nets for repair, in joined attics, over the domestic areas. Possibly. But it would also provide for an exit as well as an entrance. And for a situation more likely than a fire.
You see, the stairway up to this level was so tight in the turns that it would be difficult to transport certain items up and down it. Things you could bend or squeeze would be all right. But not long after you’re dead, you’ll be stiff. So that hook is to hang your coffin on. So now there’s a chance that it would be quite practical for me to die on Kenneth Street, at a (hopefully) decent interval from being born on it. Or, more accurately, to die inside a particular house on Kenneth St.