11

The Vital Spark at the Games

It was a fine August morning and the Vital Spark, having made an early start from Colintraive where she had spent the last two days unloading a cargo of roadstone, was punching round Toward Point into a light northerly breeze.

There was something of a holiday atmosphere aboard, what with the sun glinting on the spray of her (modest) bow wave: but more particularly because the crew had succeeded in selling a few sacks of the owner’s coal to the Colintraive merchant, and were planning a clandestine spree once they were docked at the Broomielaw and before heading for their weekends at home.

“Rothesay’s gey quiet the day, Peter,” said the mate, gesturing towards the curving esplanade and phalanx of boarding houses of Rothesay Bay in the middle distance. “No’ mony steamers there at aal this mornin’.”

Indeed, the usually bustling pier of the capital of Bute was all but deserted. Only the diminutive Texa lay alongside, her derrick swinging the crates of a mixed cargo to the quay, while MacBrayne’s majestic Columba was edging out on her daily mail run to Ardrishaig.

“Well, Dougie,” replied the Captain, “ whit else wud ye expect on the last Setturday of August? Aal the boats’ll be runnin’ in and out o’ Dunoon right noo, and since you’ve reminded me o’ that, I’ve a good mind that we should maybe chust go to join them. What d’ye think yourself?”

“Mercy, I’d clean forgot what day it wass,” said Dougie. “But aye — why not, why not indeed!

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” said Para Handy: and after making a great show of whistling through the speaking tube to an engine room and an engineer he could have bent down and touched, he called down it: “Richt, Macphail, if for wance you can get that neb o’ yours oot o’ they novelles for a meenit, ye could maybe get up some steam and see if we can get to Dunoon sometime this month!”

“What’s the great attraction aboot Dunoon?” asked Sunny Jim curiously, looking up from the forehatch, where he sat peeling an enormous potful of potatos which, with salt herring to encourage the thirst, had been planned for dinner prior to berthing in Glasgow.

“We’re goin’ to see Cowal Gaithering,” replied the skipper.

“Cowal?” queried Jim with a puzzled expression. “Wha’s Cowal? And whit’s he gaitherin’?”

“Man, Jum,” said the skipper. “There iss times when I think you are nothin’ but an ignorant lowland neep to be sure: but of course I blame your time on the Cluthas. Your world ends at the Yoker Ferry. You havna the advantage nor the concept o’ the great traditions of the west. Cowal’s no’ a person — it’s yon whole lump o’ land” — he pointed towards the hills on the port side — “and a Gaitherin’s a Games. D’ye tell me ye never heard of the Cowal Hieland Gaitherin? It’s namely aal over the world ass the snappiest Games of them aal, bar nane. Iss that not so, Dougie?”

“Whateffer you say, Peter,” observed the mate agreeably. “For they’re certainly the snappiest for a dram. Every time you find your gless iss empty there’s aye somewhere fine and handy to get it refilled. If you’ve the coin.”

“And that we have,” rejoined the skipper, “for ye’ll mind o’ the wee deal we struck wi’ Mackintosh in Colintraive, eh? But not a cheep tae the owner!” And he laid an index finger along the side of his nose with a conspiratorial grin.

“But whit happens at a Games,” queried Sunny Jim, ignoring the snort of disgust which came echoing up from the engine-room. “Is it like the fitba’?”

“Jum, Jum, I despair o’ ye. A Games iss what has made us Brutain’s hardy sons. It’s the very bedrock o’ the nation, the true tradition o’ the Hielan’s. Bonnie lasses in tartan skirts louping aboot like things possessed: laddies skirling the pipes: big fellas, that well built they wud mak’ Hurricane Jeck look like a skelf, tossin’ tree-trunks aboot chust the same ass if they were matchsticks: pipe baun’s merchin’ up and doon the streets: an’ grown men that should ken better sneakin’ off from their wives and weans to hae a few drams mair nor’s guid for them.”

“What he means,” cried Macphail from the sooty depths of the boiler-room, “is that it’s jist a lot of weel-oiled tumshies a’ dressed up like kahouchy balls cavortin’ through the toon, and frichtening the lieges: an’ a bunch of wee nyaffs jumpin through girrs an’ that.”

“Ye’re a leear, Macphail,” cried the affronted skipper, “chust the nearest thing tae a Sassenach, ye should be right ashamed tae call yerself a Scot!”

“But I thocht a’ these Games things wiz jist somethin’ invented for the towerists,” said Jim, “naethin’ but chaps in hired kilts wi’ the wrang legs for them and their behinds stickin’ oot, and accents ye could saw wud wi’?”

“Naw Jum,” said the Captain. “In Braemar maybe, or even Inverness forbye, for they’re a’ saft in the heid up there and the countryside’s fair stuffed wi’ toffs and sich. But no’ at Cowal. Cowal’s aal chust for the people. Brutain’s hardy sons! Chust wait till ye see!”

And — the puffer by then being off Bullwood with the Gantocks rocks dead ahead — Para Handy concentrated on navigating safely through the twin hazards of the reef and the constant stream of paddle-steamers depositing their quota of revellers on the main Dunoon pier, till he coaxed the Vital Spark into the very last remaining space at the puffers’ traditional berth, the little Coal Pier in the East Bay.

The misanthropic engineer was more than pleased to nominate himself as the unanimous choice for shore watchman. Wild horses would not have dragged him to the festivities as he settled back into his bunk — for all that it was but mid-day — with the latest penny dreadful, an unread novelette, and a quarter of candy-striped balls.

The remainder of the crew, with Sunny Jim under the skipper’s patient tutelage, fought their way through the colourful crowds on Argyll Street and on up to the Dunoon stadium: paid their admission moneys (with some reluctance) and spent the next few hours enthralled by a harlequinade of sight and sound as the very finest of Scottish music, dance and athletic prowess was put through its paces.

Frequent forays to the beer tent while funds lasted, and then a desperate but unsuccessful search for the ‘Committee’ when they ran out, kept them in the best of spirits in more ways than one.

When the Gathering climaxed with the traditional assembly and march past of more than 2000 pipes and drums even the normally taciturn Mate was observed to wipe a surreptitious sleeve across his eyes, Sunny Jim stood gawping at a spectacle so splendid, so sonorous and so stirring, and Para Handy himself was with some difficulty dissuaded from climbing onto a nearby cart and delivering ‘Hielan’ Laddie’ in an enthusiastic but tuneless baritone.

It was dark by the time the throngs from the stadium made their way back to the esplanade. Across the water the lights of Gourock beckoned and at the pier the paddlers were banked three deep for the evacuation to come.

But one final ritual remained.

As the clock on the Parish Kirk on Castle Hill struck 10, the night exploded into a blinding light that would have challenged the mid-day sun, and a noise that would have shamed the opening barrage at Waterloo.

The last tradition of the Cowal Highland Gathering, the Grand Fireworks display, ran its tumultuous course for 20 minutes. Then the crew of the Vital Spark picked their way through the crowds, and across the smouldering detritus of the display, back to the ship.

Spreadeagled on his back on the hatchway of the hold, with his hands pressed hard against his ears, his feet drumming on the planking, and his mouth open in a soundless scream, they found the engineer — bellowing, once he was able to speak again, that a world war had begun.

“Man, Macphail, ye’ re an ignorant gowk so ye are,” said Para Handy unsympathetically half-an-hour later, when they finally calmed him down enough to allow the administration of a stiff medicinal dram from the jealously-guarded bottle kept (with some exercise of willpower) solely for such emergencies.

“Surely ye knew what wass up when ye saw the ither puffer crews leave their boats and get awa’ from the pier ass soon ass the darkness fell? Surely ye knew that the fireworks display iss aalways set up on the very Coal Pier itself?

“No wonder ye got the fright o’ yer life an’ thought ye were in an explodin’ munitions factory. But let this be a lesson to you Dan! If you’d come ashore wi’ the rest o’ us ye might have had to pit your hand in your pocket — but at least ye wouldn’t have pit your hert in your mooth!”

FACTNOTE

Traditional Highland games are held in communities large and small throughout both the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland and the Cowal Highland Gathering, which celebrated its Centenary in 1994, is the largest and most spectacular of them all. To Scots the name of Cowal is probably the best known but English visitors are perhaps more likely to be aware of the Braemar Games thanks largely to the ‘Royal’ connection. Senior members of the Royal family attend every year, as the event coincides with their holiday in nearby Balmoral Castle.

Similar games are held throughout the world, wherever there is a strong Scottish community or connection, and many overseas competitors take part in the games in Scotland — particularly at Cowal, which hosts the official world championship events in Highland dancing as well as prestigious solo piping and pipe band competitions. Other attractions at any self-respecting games will include the traditional heavy athletic events (the tossing of the caber in particular) without which no Highland event would be deemed complete — and most certainly not by any visitors from south of the border!

Dunoon’s wooden steamer pier still stands, though it is today a somewhat depressing mockery of its past glories, reminiscent of a Hollywood film-set: all facade and no substance. Much of its splendidly colourful and overstated Victorian superstructure of tea-rooms, towers and turrets lies sadly unused and some — most regrettably part of its long viewing-gallery — has been demolished. It is the terminal for CalMac’s work-horse vehicle ferry service from Gourock and, in summer months, an occasional port of call for the Waverley, the only operational sea-going paddle steamer left in the world.

Old photographs from the turn of the century show a different world — paddlers queuing up to come alongside, passengers streaming on and off in their hundreds (they still do, though now from the far-from-glamorous ro-ro ferries) and files of charabancs and horse-buggies awaiting them on the shore side of the pier gates. Even into the fifties Dunoon remained a steamer ‘cross-roads’, with day-long activity to watch, and many holiday-makers passed hours on the pier (with interludes in its tea-room or its bar according to taste!) enjoying the varied pageant of shipping on the Firth.

THE GENERATION GAP — The great tradition of Highland games continues unabated — the wardrobe of the participants might be unrecognisably different, but the programme of Highland dancing, pipes and drums and heavy athletics celebrated every August in Dunoon Stadium today is the same as it was in the days when the Vital Spark sailed the Firth. Para Handy would be as much at home at the Cowal Games in 1995 as he was in 1905, though the outfits worn by today’s dancers and pipers would seem as strange to his eyes as those in this photograph are to ours.

A few hundred yards north east of the steamer pier is the still older stone jetty which was used by generations of puffers, and their predecessors. Though it is decades now since there was last a cargo boat of any description calling at Dunoon this is still known locally as the “Coal Pier” — and the displays of pyrotechnics which climax the last night of Cowal Gathering are indeed constructed on this convenient platform.