Introduction^*

Anyone who is planning to tamper with a national institution approaches the task with some trepidation and, in my efforts to extend the repertoire of the much-loved tales about the Clyde puffer Vital Spark and her kenspeckle Captain and crew, I am no exception.

Neil Munro’s characters are a national institution to many Scots, and the tales have a remarkable provenance. They were first created to feature in Munro’s anonymous columns in the Glasgow News, on which paper he rose to become editor. Although they were dismissed as ‘slight’ by their creator (who saw them as an interruption to the writing of his serious, and nowadays sadly neglected, historical novels) they have rarely, if ever, been out of print for three-quarters of a century. Year on year new generations of readers are captivated by the gentle humour and kindly atmosphere of these chronicles of a long-lost world and a gentler society, on which we tend to look back with much affection, and nostalgic regret for what has gone for ever.

Trying to live up to the expectations of such enthusiasts while having the impertinence to try to recreate Para Handy and his people was always going to be a daunting task.

However, at the risk of offending the purists, I have to say at once that writing these stories has been great fun — which, in an ideal world, all writing should be; and that there were occasions when they wrote themselves, in the sense that I would embark on a particular tale with no clear idea of where or how it would come to its conclusion.

In retrospect, however, I am surprised that a volume of new Para Handy tales has not been attempted before this. There have been no less than three television reincarnations of the Vital Spark and only in the most recent of them was there any serious attempt to dramatise some of Neil Munro’s original storylines: the others were, basically, ‘new’ creations. The most faithful of all the attempts to transfer Para Handy from the printed page was, in my view, the 1953 film The Maggie which, though never formally acknowledged as being based on Neil Munro’s own characters, so obviously and so successfully in fact was.

Whether I have succeeded in creating an acceptable extension to the original tales will not be for me to judge, and I offer no attempt to defend my efforts in terms of their authenticity or readability. That is a matter for the personal judgement of those who may read them.

I would, however, defend the concept of writing new tales built round Neil Munro’s creations, for I believe it has in fact been done before — and during his lifetime. In my documentary volume In The Wake Of The Vital Spark I put forward the proposition that the 18 ‘new’ stories published for the first time in the recent Birlinn edition of the original tales were, in fact, the work of hands other than Neil Munro’s. I won’t reiterate the arguments here, but my conviction about that point was one of the factors which encouraged me to proceed with the present work.

I close the case for the defence by stressing that I believe Neil Munro to be one of the finest writers of humorous fiction which this, or any other, country has ever produced. I grew up with the Para Handy tales, and know them — literally — almost off by heart. I therefore approached the whole task with both affection and respect for their creator. I like to believe that Neil Munro would not be taken too aback by imitation, for it is, we are told, the sincerest form of flattery.

And I am certain that he would not look too unkindly on whoever was rash enough to attempt it — for that surely is the kind of sympathetic and forgiving man he was.

I certainly don’t ask the readers to be either sympathetic or forgiving, however — but simply to read on, and come to their own conclusions and form their own judgements!

My one intention and my only wish is that these new tales might entertain and amuse, for if they fail in that, then they fail in everything.

Sandhaven, Argyll

September 1995

^* This is the same introduction which appeared in Para Handy Sails Again.