“Ah Bet Moor Trooble Ahn Scotland"

Andy and Magg's photo of the Holy Loch from Sandbank

          Here are the true, funny adventures of an American riding the wave of crazy culture shock in Dunoon and Kilmun, Scotland.  Sometimes it was even scary.  None of the photos I had from that time survived, so I am dependent on new Scottish friends for theirs.

          Scotland in1966 was surprising, refreshing and a whole NEW learning experience for me.   I had arrived from Charleston, South Carolina in September, excited, full of hope and a little fear, too.   My husband of only four months, Tom Brown, was stationed aboard the USS Simon Lake, a submarine tender that was anchored in the beautiful Holy Loch, just off the Firth of Clyde.  Dunoon was the beautiful little town near which we lived.  Our home was actually in the village of Kilmun.

          Over in Kilmun we’d rented a two bedroom, fairly new house that had been built by an officer on the previous Navy ship.   Kilmun was a very small community built on the opposite side of the Loch from Dunoon.  There were a few homes along the rock-walled road around the Loch, some quaint stores and an old stone pub there, built into a wall.  I had walked up to the village just to look around.   I was bored stiff and we needed dinner.

         Along the way I noticed every house had a tiny plume of smoke coming out of its chimney, the yards were neat and well-kept, with flowers.  Most homes were old-looking, built of weathered stone with rock walls surrounding them.   The air was fresh, sweet and briskly cold.  The blue-green Holy Loch sparkled brightly and gentle waves lapped against the rock retaining wall on one side of the road.  White swans swam elegantly, necks arched, in small graceful circles out in the water.  It was like a scene out of a Jane Austen movie. 

Photo of Kilmun pier, again one of the Blackwood's.

         The butcher shop in Kilmun was the most fascinating shop of all to me.  So I headed right for it.

  

         Inside the large glass store window, there was a big yellow-striped CAT sunning himself!   Yep, he was sitting right next to a basket of fresh eggs as though he belonged.    (What? A CAT, running free in a shop that sold meat and eggs?    Where was the Health Inspector?  They would have had a COW if it were the States.)

         I never saw such a thing before, nor would I expect to.   In the States, the ONLY animal that might be in such a place, (and wasn’t SUPPOSED to be in there) would be MICE.  Then, I thought, “Ah..... Smart Scots, the cat probably keeps the mice under control.”    I opened the old, heavy door and walked right into the “Butcher Shoppe”.

          Inside there were huge quarters of meat, ducks and chickens, and long loops of sausages hanging on hooks up high, right in plain sight for customers to view.  There were NO FISH.   (I learned that fish were sold at a different shop.)  Strange....  A few local customers were being served by the employees, so I waited and watched.

This old photo is very similar to the shop I visited in 1966 in Kilmun, minus the CAT!

                   It was the jolly, red-faced butcher, wearing a slightly blood-tinged white apron that caught my eye!    His arms were the size of a wrestler’s and he had a neat beard and wore a funny flat cap.   He was short, stocky and smiling as he worked on his task:  he was slinging sausages.   Yes, “slinging sausages!”

          He had a long, 15 to TWENTY-foot length of almost transparent meat casing into which a meat grinding machine had been extruding lumps of ground sausage.    After all the sausage was squished into this tube, he’d pinch the tube about every six inches, with a deft, almost wild, expert twist.  Then he would start swinging the sausage tube with a snap of his thick wrist, so it twisted shut on both sides of the sausage lumps.   When he was finished, he had about TWENTY FEET of connected sausage links!  

There used to be a Ferry to Kilmun from here until the 1970s. Tom probably took it home. (another of Jane's photos.)

                These he looped around his neck as he worked the links to the end of the casing tube.   Amazing!   Not one link touched the floor, which by the way, was covered in sawdust!   It really could have been a scene out of the Renaissance, Jane Austen's novels or any period that was really old.

           When he was finished, he was practically mummified in those sausage ropes!   I always loved eating pork sausage, but I had no clue how it was made!  (In the States, you could buy individual sausage links, neatly lined up by the dozen in a Styrofoam tray, covered with plastic wrap.)  How you GOT the ground sausage to FORM individual links never occurred to me, not even once.  At the ripe old age of 21, I was getting an education in a butcher shop.

          I think people turned around and stared when they heard my bottom jaw hit the sawdust-covered floor.  I couldn’t take my eyes off this butcher while he was working.  It was like a MEAT symphony, with the cadence and rhythm of his hands.   The employees handed customers white waxed paper-wrapped bundles of who-knows-what, and they left, smiling at me as they passed out the door.  

          I am sure they KNEW I was a Yank.   The blue jeans, bright red Mickey Mouse tee shirt and sneakers probably gave me away.  On second thought, the way I was gawking at everything probably gave them the hint.  The butcher’s staff spoke to me in a garbled bunch of pleasant words that I assumed were, “What can I get for you?” in Scottish brogue.   I didn’t know a word of what they actually said.  (No "translator" handy right then.  He was on the ship, working. That would have been Tom.)

This photo of the USS Simon Lake is courtesy of Dougie MacDonald of Dunoon.

            Much embarrassed, I pointed at the sausages which the butcher had looped around his neck.    I muttered something probably as unintelligible to them as what they’d said to me.  He handed them this whole “fire hose roll” of sausages!   Between hand signals and nods, I made them understand I wanted about a dozen sausages.   ("Ucht!"  Even with a live CAT in the shop and a man with food draped around his neck, it probably would NOT kill me to eat the meat.)   I had to cook it in a hot skillet, right?  (I also didn’t know how to cook.)   “That should emolliate any germs,” I thought to myself.

             As I was struggling to make sense of the price signs (like hieroglyphics “3/6”, which I later learned said, “Three shillings and sixpence”) an American wife of one of the sailors walked right in the store.  She heard my accent and knew right away I wasn’t a local.   And I needed rescuing!  She smiled at me, probably feeling sorry for me, the "ditwad." 

         She helped me figure out which of the paper notes and various strange coins in my purse, I should give to the shop staff for my sausages.    It was all very confusing.  The pound notes were huge, lots bigger than the American dollars and the coins were totally a mystery to me.  I never did learn them in 2 years!  (Mostly we shopped at the Commissary on the Navy base in Sandbank, near Dunoon.  There we used dollars and American coins.  What can I say, "L-A-Z-Y.")

The Vendor's vans were like this only older back in the 60s.

              “They come ‘round in their little vans right to your DOOR, if you want them to,” she commented to me.   My eyes popped open wide.

                      Huh?   “Curb” service?! 

 

             That sounded pretty cool.  “The baker", “fruit guys, "fish guys,” and the "butcher" would all come to ME to let me choose from their wares, and buy anything I wanted, without stepping out of my house!  Coooool!

               You see, going shopping was a problem for me those days.  Tom had FORBIDDEN me to drive our car anymore.... just because I almost KILLED a local man by going around a corner on the WRONG side of the street!  (Yeah, I bet I scared the CRAP out of that poor fellow!)  You should have seen the expression on his face as he flattened himself back into the door of that pub, as I came exploding out of nowhere right at him!   Not to mention I think maybe I was driving a little fast... (Grin.)

            So, between the nice sailor’s wife and the butcher staff, I managed to line myself up to begin receiving local delivery of meats and eggs.  That was a first.

                       One of many to come.

           It was not long before I got the “hang of things” as Yanks say.   The house we rented had a double front door;  I had wondered why, since the house didn’t even have storm windows to insulate against the cold.   We never used the front door anyway, just the kitchen entrance.  I went home and looked at the doors and the short space between them, with hooks on both side walls, for hanging coats.   Finally, I GOT it.

Our rented house was on the left.  It' still there! (Blackwood photo)

               Only the inside door of the double front doors was supposed to lock.  The idea was that you put three to five baskets in the area between the inside door and the outside one.  (One or more baskets per corner.)   Into each you were supposed to put a note saying what you wanted the shop vendors to leave for you, in case you weren’t home when they came.   

                 In turn each vendor would leave YOU a note at the end of each delivery week, saying how much YOU owed him.  The next time he came, he collected his money.   

  

              Yeah, kinda like the good ole’ American credit system!   (Well, NOT really.  No interest or late fees, and No payments on what you owed teh vendors.  You just didn’t get anything left for you, if you didn't pay up.   Then, the Constable  would come knocking at your door!)

          The local Scottish custom was that you either put the exact change in the basket with his note, or you could leave a paper pound note or coins if you didn’t have the exact amount.  The vendors always made the correct change!  Each vendor usually had a teen-age boy who would do all the running back and forth between the baskets and their van.  (I wouldn’t want that job.   Some of the homes were up hills and had lots of stairs!)

        Now, I know you other Americans, who have to go OUT of the house shopping, can grasp the HUGE convenience of this tradition.  Simply put, you left a note for the butcher, the "dairyman", the "baker", the ‘fruiterer” (yeah, it’s a long weird name) or the “fishmonger” in their respective baskets, and they’d simply leave your food, trusting you to pay later.   

          If you happened to be home when they came, you got to actually speak to them, paw over their offerings.  (The “Fruiterer” had veggies too, not just fruit.)  It was way DIFFERENT over in Scotland from what I was accustomed to in the States.   You had to do it their way or else.   No special treatment for the crazy Americans.  No junk food, either. 

         You actually had to walk or drive your fat butt to a store for that.  Nobody told them about the "Roach Coaches" we had in the States.  ("fast food on wheels" that came to places of employment, or sometimes just sat on street corners.)

         The Scots had a “hoot” over us Yanks.   We were so dumb for being such cocky suckers.  Mostly, that would be the SAILORS.

Jane Thomas's photo of the Ardnadam pier in Sandbank.

            Scotland was full of HONEST folk.  Nobody would ever cheat you; nobody would swipe your change or the payment money...OR THE FOOD.  Nobody would DREAM of snatching your ANYTHING in Dunoon and Kilmun.  At least not that I ever heard of.  (Huh, not like in the States!) 

             No, the FIRST thing that would happen if we had the Scottish system in the USA, would be this:

       #1.   Some smarmy crook would STEAL both the food AND the money.  (and probably take the baskets, too!)

    Or..

       #2.   Some equally evil person would probably shut the outside door, so nobody could see what he was up to, and then PICK YOUR INNER DOOR LOCK AND ROB YOU BLIND!

     Or...

       #3.   Some really, REALLY PERVERSE rapscallion would hide between both doors... and when you unlocked the inner one to get your stuff, WOULD ATTACK YOU... then ROB OR KILL YOU!

      Or...

        #4.  Some malicious teenager would put a reeking paper bag of dog SH_T inside your front door, and then set it on fire, hoping you’d smell smoke, come rushing out and STOMP on the bag!  No kidding!  (I will never claim to have done such a nasty thing, but I sure laughed at it!)  Especially the look on the victim's face when he looked at his shoe!

       Yeah, that’s the “good ole USA.”   I never felt safe there.   In Scotland, I never feared anything...  but the Constable!  One day I almost got arrested!

         It happened that I had rescued and adopted four THREE-DAY OLD kittens a few months before this time.  I had hand-raised the mewing little demons, who clung to my long flannel nightgown while I fed them one at time with a doll bottle.  You could not take a single step without having three swinging little fur puffs, screeching in hunger, as they clung like “Velcro balls” onto the hem of your “nightie.”    

         Yep, that had been my life – nighttime feedings for four.  For weeks.  It was two of those cute fur bags that got me into trouble!

Calico kittens similar to my four.

             They all had survived, all had thrived and had grown into fur-covered “Holy Terrors” (as my Mom used to call me.)    I was always peeling my feisty kittens off our curtains, out from under the upholstered chairs, (where they’d swipe at your stocking feet with ten needle-sharp claws), out of the inside trash can, and off the kitchen table and counters.  They could jump like jackrabbits from the ground to about 3 feet in the air!  

  

             I learned fast to keep my block of butter in the larder or else I’d find cat hairs and lick marks on it!  (Oh, a “larder” was the UK equivalent of a fridge.  It was a compartment with shelves and had one side open to the outside world, covered with screen.)  Mine had screen-covered holes in the outer wall of the kitchen.  Sure was lots of room in there!  It did keep the food nice and cold for a few days.  Plus it didn’t use any electricity, which saved lots of money!

                  

           Where was I? Oh, YES, about the KITTENS.  See, you distracted me!

           I had the 4 “fur terrors” situated (shut in) the spare bedroom, with one of the high louver bedroom windows open at the top for ventilation.  They’d play, jump off and on the bunk beds, and chase each other around the room all day.   I had pinned the long curtains up high off the floor, so they could not climb and shred them to bits.  This kitty prison kept them out of my way and they caused a lot less trouble for me.

                                  Or so I thought.

Brutus, Tom's dog, was always barking.

             One day I heard Tom’s pesky mutt, Brutus, the Alsatian (alias “pain in the butt”), barking like crazy again.  He always barked when the vendor vans came by or at anything, really.   

              I looked out my kitchen window and saw the Fishmonger was making his rounds, was parked next door on the road side.   I saw he’d stopped to talk to the Constable who lived there, in the GAOL (jail) house. 


          (Yes, I know, just who you would want for a neighbor, the COPS!)   They both were chatting and laughing.

If these fishmongers look blurry, well it was the 60s!

             Suddenly I saw something moving near his van.   Two somethings...

           There it was, a flash of CALICO fur!   My eyes bugged out as I watched, helplessly, as two of MY kittens jumped into that Fishmonger’s open driver’s door and disappeared! 

         Oh, HOLY CRAP!   This was not going to end well.

         By the time I had run out of our house, and down the driveway, it was too late. 

          Two of my naughty little kittens were IN a box of BIG fish in the back of the van and were dragging one out the driver’s door!  Growling like fierce LIONS, and tugging, they actually got the darn foot-long fish out of the van and onto the dirt!   I raced toward them.  
         The little buggers by then had this huge, probably very expensive dead fish.   Speedily they had dragged into a big drain pipe by the road!   No way was I getting those two out.  The fish was a total loss.

         My wild rush from our house had NOT gone unnoticed.  The back doors of the Fishmonger’s van had been wide open.  Both the Constable and the Fishmonger had a clear view of MY kittens in the act of pilfering the fish! 


          I was ALREADY in trouble with the Constable over Tom’s naughty mutt Brutus.   The stern Scottish Police Officer had already warned us several times about his incessant barking, his digging up the yard (sometimes the Constable's too), his chewing on the side of our house, and  Brutus molesting the construction workers who built the new Gaol (jail!)    We were on “warning.”  It was basically our LAST chance.

          I could almost envision the handcuffs clinking around my wrists.  The Constable and the Fishmonger both came walking around the van and stood staring at the huge fish, way up inside the drain pipe on the bottom of my yard.    MY two fiercely growling kittens were noisily and totally trashing it.  Now, I was in REAL trouble!    

          I apologized profusely to two mute, but frowning faces, while they said NOT a word.  Both men just glared at me, with their arms folded across their chests.    OH, boy.....

          The Constable, pulling himself up to his full height, making a very nasty face, said to me in heavy Scottish brogue, 

        “Yoong lass, Yah hafta pey tha’ fool cusst  fer tha’ fish!”  

         He scowled at me, his hands now on his hips.   (In other words, there went my grocery money for a week!)   He frowned with his most imperious expression.   The Fishmonger was also looking VERY ANGRY.  I was terrified.

         That Fishmonger was biting his bottom lip and his face was RED.  He didn’t say a word, in fact, he seemed to be struggling NOT to speak at all.  (Oh boy, this was really going to be BAD...)  I knew that look.

(Blackwood's photo of the loch). I wanted to throw myself in there about then....

          “I’m so, so, SO SORRY, Officer,”  I moaned, my eyes tearing up with the weight of my crime.  “Whatever it costs, I’ll pay it all,” I breathed raggedly, scared to death of what was coming next.  

          What happened next I will NEVER forget.

          The Fishmonger apparently couldn’t take it any longer.

          He exploded in a loud HOOT and bent over double, LAUGHING, slapping his knees, shaking his head!  Then, the Constable burst out in a “Hawing” bark of laughter, and he too, was bent, holding his stomach, and guffawing hard at me!  I just stood there with my mouth OPEN, getting "chin burn." 

         What was going on?!!  Was my punishment so diabolical it was actually “funny?”    Stunned, I stared from one man’s face to the other, and back again.

         When they finally got control of whatever bizarre thought that was making them shake with laughter, the Constable straightened his hat, took a deep breath and said, grinning, 

        “I cannae sey wheen I huv’ laft moor'!  Tha’ fish dinnae cust beht ten pence!” 

          Both of them started hooting again, laughing hard, and wiping their eyes.

        (Wait, “TEN PENCE”.... that was only about an American DIME, I thought!!)

         Then I GOT it.  The JOKE was on ME!


          My breath, which I had been holding in fear, ripped from me.   (I probably sprayed spit all over them, I burst out laughing so hard!)   And we three were laughing, AGAIN, this time TOGETHER!

         It came to light shortly after we all calmed down, that the Constable and the Fishmonger had both NOTICED the kittens bouncing down the driveway toward the van, a few minutes earlier

        They both knew the Fishmonger had sold out all his really nice fish, except his cheap “soup fishes” that day.   Both were cat lovers and assumed that the kittens would probably be sniffing around the van, trying to get up in it.

       When the little rascals actually succeeded and then tried to steal a giant fish (compared to their combined size) the Constable and vendor had LET them get away with it, because it was so funny TO THEM.   There I was, sputtering, apologizing and worried sick that I was going to jail (gaol) and those two MEN WERE LAUGHING AT ME!    They set me up!

Don't let that darling face fool you. Those fur bags were diabolical!

          Well, looking back, it WAS a very funny story I got to tell Tom later. 

         Getting those two little kittens OUT of the drain pipe was quite another story.  I tried reaching up into the pipe and got CLAWED for my effort.  TWICE.  I thought about tossing water up the pipe, but figured the little beasts would just drag their bounty in farther.  Finally the “Fish guy” had an idea.

         He had a pair of long tongs (heaven knows why) and he was able to grab the stolen fish with these.  OUT came the dirty, gnawed-on ten cent fish, and of course, then followed the two growling kittens!   Constable and I each pried a kitten off the fish, (got scratched again) and carried them back up to our house.   He was actually being nice.

        When I got back from putting my furry thieves in the loo (toilet room),  and went back down to the truck to pay him, the Fishmonger had MY fish wrapped in white waxed paper!  (Just like it was a purchase of a decent eating fish.)  He mumbled something in Scottish brogue about “washing it off and cooking it.” 

       I bit my tongue, smiled and thanked him.  (Then I went straight in the house and tossed that stinking fish in the GARBAGE!)  I then tossed the naughty kittens back in the room with their two buddies. 

         But I wondered HOW they’d gotten OUT of their closed room.  How?

        That louvver window must have been 6 to 7 feet off the floor.  There was nothing within 3 feet of that window they could have climbed up on.


         Yeah, that's what I thought, but I was dead wrong.

         Later on, I was in the living room.   Suddenly, I heard faint mewing OUTSIDE.   I went to my double front doors and opened  them both.   There sat the SAME two kittens, on my front steps, mewing! 

         What... wait, how did those little rascals get OUT AGAIN? 

         I picked them up and carried them into the “pet room” one more time and closed the door as always; but this time I closed it behind me.  Inside, I sat and watched the four kittens play and was very patient.   I was going to get to the bottom of this “escaping kittens fiasco!”

                          It didn’t take but 15 minutes.  

         One of my little calico thieves climbed all the way up to the top bunk bed by pulling himself up the foot boards with his four paws.   (Like climbing a ladder.)  Then, just like a trapeze artist, he carefully stepped out onto the inch-wide foot board.   While I watched in total amazement, he balanced all fours on the wood piece, collected his scrawny little fur butt like a spring under him and.....

         VAULTED through the air, landing with four claws hooking into the fabric on MY PINNED UP WINDOW CURTAINS!   (So much for that stopping him!)

(Jane's photo) Looking from Graham's Point in Kilmun to the Loch.

         THAT LITTLE CURMUDGEON!    He scrambled up that curtain like his fanny was on fire!   He KNEW I was watching him!

         His thief brother followed in short order!  Before I could grab the second kitten, the first one had jumped out the louvver window that I’d previously opened for ventilation!  He landed in a bush and disappeared!  Quickly I shut the upper window, and put the OTHER would-be escapee’ back on the floor.  I ran out the bedroom door, shutting in three now squalling kittens.  I flew to the front door again. 

         Sure enough, when I opened the outside FRONT door, THERE sat my escape artist, meowing like he was a king, calling for admittance to the castle!  So, that’s how the little fur balls were escaping.  Hah!  Gottcha!

       I had to take the curtain down completely, to prevent any further escapades.   Why only two of the 4 furry fiends tried the wild “leaping-across-three-feet of OPEN space to the curtain” trick, I never knew.

        When Tom came home I told him about the whole day.  

        He laughed too.   Then,  I showed him the kittens’ flying escape trick.   Sure enough, after 15 minutes, the SAME two rascals escaped right before our eyes, hurling their furry butts across that open space to the curtain, and then slipping out the top window I had re-opened for the demonstration. 


         But they didn’t go around to the front door!   No, both were dodging Brutus near the trash can and trying to climb INTO THAT!   Yeah, where the DEAD STINKING FISH WAS!   Tom had to sling shot it way out into the Loch to keep them from getting it.

        So we found NEW homes for those two escaping rascals right away!  You just don’t want FOUR cats and one litter box in a closed up room.  The window had to stay open or it would stink up the place.  Until I found them homes, I had to remove the curtains.  They were practically shredded by now anyway. (Yep, there went a week's worth of grocery money!)

Kilmun and Strone are in the distance. (Jane's photo)

                Thus ended another time in Scotland when there was “Moore Trooble” with the cops!    At least nobody went to gaol (jail).

 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

         Much thanks to Jane Thomas's fabulous blog: Around the Firth of Clyde for her gorgeous photography (http://jane-firthofclyde.blogspot.com/) and to Andy and Maggs Blackwood of the Dunoon Argyll Scotland Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000616113125) for your beautiful photos here!  

       Dougie MacDonald, also for his ship photo.  Also thanks to Qype for their photo of the fishmongers. (www.Qype.co.uk).  Final thanks to Grimsby Fish Company for their shot of a fish van. (www.thegrimsbyfishcompany.co.uk)