Each journey begins and also ends. The journey through
life begins... and it ends.
Yet fresh journeys go forth. Father begets son who becomes
in turn father who begets son.
Seek first to know your own journey's beginning and end;
seek then the other journeys of which you are a close
part.
But in this seeking know patience. Wear the traveller's
cloak which shelters and permits you to endure.
"What can you see?"
Moonwatcher fights the urge to give the Howard Carter
reply. Fails.
"Wonderful things!" he shouts.
"Eh?" the tone of the woman's voice, indicates that she's
failed to pick up on his sarcasm.
"What do you see?" she repeats impatiently.
"Everywhere, the glint of gold!" he continues, safe in the
knowledge he's beyond her reach, sight and throwing
range.
"Stop mucking around. Can you see it?"
"Can't see a bloody thing at the moment - the torch's gone
out!"
She looks up the length of the aluminium ladder which
disappears into the dark opening of the loft, and wishes
she could follow him up there, and search for herself. But
she can't, so reluctantly accepts that her chances of
finding the item she seeks, are little more than
zero.
She knows his heart's not in it; that he hates going up
into the loft. It must be years since he last ventured up
there, and that was only to stow away more stuff that was
cluttering the house - stuff that couldn't possibly be
thrown out. He keeps on at her, that the tiny attic's
crammed full, and that a major clearout's needed. He
insists that, once he gets around to rigging an electric
light up there, the long awaited clearance will begin; a
project many years in the offing.
Nearly thirty years of married life have accumulated a
great deal of stuff, most of it packed into the space her
husband now explores - in total darkness, it seems.
"I'm going to put the kettle on." she shouts up in
frustration.
"Good idea! I'll look for mummies."
Moonwatcher, alone in the dark, listens to the diminishing
sound of footsteps on the stairs. He fiddles with the torch
which finally flashes to life and temporarily blinding him
because it was pointing directly into his face at the time.
Blinking, he gradually manages to focus as and he sweeps
the beam across the confined space of the loft.
The area is narrow and low. Headroom is limited to the
stretch along the central section, where the high point of
the roof runs the length of the terraced building. Along
either side, and encroaching into the central area, are
containers of every shape and size, piled up to the
slanting roof, some perched precariously on top of, or
against each other, and obviously deposited in a rush, in
dim light or even darkness. Cobwebs indicate signs of non
human life, and motes of dust sparkle in the
torchlight.
The place is a shambles. To find anything here, will be
next to impossible. He wants to give up now, to go back
down the hatch behind him, descend the ladder, and convince
his other half of the futility of the search. But, as the
torch beam hovers over certain areas, chasing away shadows,
his curiosity is fired, and he does indeed begin to see
'wonderful things'.
Above him, discernable shapes began begin to appear out of
the gloom.
At first, startled, he thinks he sees a small figure,
hanging from the rafters. Stepping forward, crouching to
avoid the sharp prongs of the television aerial bolted to a
wooden beam, he recognises one of the boys' old Cub Scout
jerseys draped over a crosspiece. The sleeve still sports
the various merit badges so proudly achieved. A red sleigh
hangs alongside, with tufts of dried winter grass, gouged
out from under the snow of years before. A Sea Cadet cap
peers out from behind another roof beam, and a polystyrene
surf board reminds him of a holiday in Cornwall, not so
long ago - or perhaps it was. How time flies.
Now, captivated by what he's seeing, Moonwatcher creeps
further into the loft, the torchlight picking out fresh
treasures at every turn. An old train set. A baseball bat.
A straw hat with lilac ribbon. A small bicycle wheel pokes
out from behind two great stacks of boxes. Resting the
torch on top of a carton, he manhandles the bike out of
it's its hiding place, and feels a wave of nostalgia as a
small, white sports bike emerges. A vivid memory of a
Christmas morning. This very bike, a big ribbon tied around
the dropped handlebars, being wheeled into the Living Room.
The look of delight on his youngest son's face, as he set
eyes on it for the first time.
Torch in hand again, the beam picks up out a primate's face
in the corner staring at him from a corner. The ape looks
too lifelike for comfort. But its discovery has Moonwatcher
grabbing it in both hands, and stroking its soft fur.
He recalls the day he bought it. The exact day. The day his
eldest was born.
He'd rushed around to the big toy shop in Glasgow's Partick
and bought the biggest cuddly toy they had. How could it
have ended up here in this cold, dark attic? As he cuddles
Mickey, he feels a tinge of guilt and anger with
himself.
Something dangling, catches his eye. A scale model of the
Mir Space Station. Carefully constructed and hand painted,
it's difficult to believe he'd made it himself. Assembled
from a kit during a period of illness and long forgotten,
it's been 'orbiting' up here in dark space all this
time.
A guitar. At the touch of his thumb, the strings emit the
same tuneless noise they've always done. Boxes of board
games that once filled the room downstairs with laughter
and fun, as the family sat around the table, throwing dice,
moving counters, slaying dragons, counting toy money and
making words from bits of plastic.
Lower down, piles of books. Some belonging belonged to the
boys, but some are old textbooks which bring back memories
of studying and exams. A 1950's 'Eagle Annual'; a
quick flick through it's its pages reveals 'Dan
Dare' in glossy colour. 'Norton's Star Atlas.
Bronowski's 'The Ascent of Man'. Westerns. Old
videos and tapes. More books have him delving deeper, until
he finds himself on hands and knees pulling difficult to
reach volumes from awkward recesses, revealing more boxes
and other items.
It's at this point, as he lies prone among the rafters,
clutter and cobwebs, arms outstretched trying to grab an
elusive book, that he spots the corner of a small brown
case. Manoeuvring the torch to into a position where he can
see the case more clearly, he recognises it as one once
used as an ambulance case. The case itself has a history,
but he's intrigued that it has survived, and wonders what
it may contain after all this time.
Gradually, he manages to get his fingers on the handle, and
pulls it toward him. After a struggle, he finds himself
cross-legged in the middle of the loft with the case at his
feet, illuminated in the circle of light from the torch.
It's old and scuffed. His name can still be made out
faintly on one corner. The catches, once shiny and bright,
are now corroded but snap open easily at the touch of his
fingertips.
The lid swings open.
Maps and Books. That's what's inside. Some old maps and a
small collection of books. Bit disappointing really. The
map at the top, well worn, bears the title
'Merrick'. He opens it gingerly revealing it's its
printed surface with detailed contours and symbols. Holding
the torch close, he traces a fingertip carefully over
hand-drawn dotted lines, recording a route he'd taken over
the hills represented on the stiff paper.
Realisation dawns and he lays the map to one side, turning
his attention to the rest of the case's contents. Three
books. The first, its torn dust-cover still in place, shows
the figure of a cyclist.
'The Highwayman'.
He opens the cover. A handwritten name, address and date
stare at him: his name, an address long vacated, a year -
1971. A rubber stamp-mark in the centre of the page, shows
the symbol of a bicycle with the word 'Wanlockhead'.
He thumbs the pages, catching the a whiff of dampness from
the paper. He loves the smell of books - old, new, it
doesn't matter. Unlike computers, books have character,
texture, smell, a life. They can talk to you. This book
talks to Moonwatcher, as its pages fall open at a glossy
black-and-white full-page photo of a face in a rock. The
face of 'The Grey Man'. As he runs his finger over
the photo, long-forgotten memories are triggered.
The two other books are quickly dug out of the case.
A thick red volume, old even before this edition was
published. Its pages are crammed with descriptions of a
land, little changed since it was written by a minister's
hand nearly a hundred years before. It is illustrated with
beautiful line drawings.
A small, dark blue, leather bound novel completes the trio.
Heavy going 19th Century dialogue, in very small print. He
remembers how hard he sought this book at the time, and how
difficult it was to read. He had persevered because of the
account it gave, albeit in the context of a fictitious
tale, of the wild land that interested him and that he was
keen to explore.
The torchlight flickers ominously, and dims as he explores
the case further. He's surprised to find a small camera.
The Kodak 'Instamatic' has long since become obsolete, its
peculiar film cartridges are probably museum pieces in this
day of mobile phone cameras and digital photography. He
picks it up, examines it, clicks it open, closes it,
presses the shutter release. It clicks, but it's filmless
lens records nothing. Its legacy, however, stares up at him
from the bottom of the case. A thin, black photo-album made
from cheap plastic.
The failing torchlight picks up out the crude, crayon
drawing of the Grey Man on the cover. Moonwatcher opens the
album reverently, knowing that he's about to step into the
past. Small square colour photos, each with white border
and slotted into individual transparent pockets - four to a
page - stare out up at him.
The first photo is of a young man riding a bicycle towards
the camera. It's his thick, dark hair blowing in the
breeze, that makes Moonwatcher smile. He raises his a hand
to his head, runs his fingers through his hair. It's still
as thick, but the dark has given way to a shade of grey - a
very white shade of grey.
The photos deliver their stories. Old Mrs Young, standing
outside Wanlockhead Hostel on a cold, snowy winter's day.
Bill Houston and Piper at the stove in the hostel's
kitchen. Davie Bell's Memorial on a hot summer's afternoon,
with Moonwatcher's bike propped against its side.
His cramped, cross-legged position brings complaints from
his knees, prompting him to painfully straighten his legs,
as he cradles the album in his lap. His aching joints are a
cruel reminder that his cycling days are long gone.
The photos continue.
His old blue tent at Glentrool Campsite. He looks around
the gloom of the attic. That tent must still be here,
somewhere. It served him well for many years:clandestine
summer weekends with the girl he'd go on to marry; kids
billet during family holidays; storage tent when he became
a 'super camper' with a 'Volkswagen Camper',
frame-tent and a portable telly.
A turn of the page presents him with a collection of
black-and-white photos. The same tent under a small tree,
in a stone enclosure. A wild land. Distant shots of the
campsite, taken at from a height. The overcast threatening
sky.
The loch. The burn. The mountains.
The Grey Man.
Moonwatcher leans back against a vertical wooden beam, and
sighs, the old photo-album open at the a single picture of
the rock face.
The torch dims further, flickers and fades. He sits in the
darkness.
He never returned to the Grey Man. Life took over. Work,
marriage, kids, age. He'd often thought about returning,
was thinking about it now, but doubts whether he'd even
make it up the side of Buchan Hill before his knees, or
something more vital, gave out.
He sits quietly in the darkness and remembers.
A lone figure, draped in yellow oilskin cape, hunched over
the handlebars of a heavily laden bicycle, struggling
slowly against the driving rain and steep incline of a
narrow, winding road.
Dedicated to the memory of Davie Bell
'The Highwayman'.
Acknowledgements
This account is based on memories of the time, the
wonderful people I met and the places visited. I have tried
to be as accurate as possible with names, locations and
events. The exception being the girl 'Tricia' in the final
chapter. She was a composite of every pretty young girl I
lusted after in my youth. I suppose I still lust after them
- but now I cant can't remember why! I suspect many of
those mentioned are now gone, but if anyone recognises
themselves, or someone they know, I'd love to hear from
you.
The three books which I refer to are:
'The Highwayman'
David E. T. Bell
Published by The Ayrshire Post, 1971
'Highways and Byways in Galloway and Carrick'
Rev. C. H. Dick
First published 1916, Republished 1972 by MacMillan and
Co.
'The Raiders' S. R. Crockett First published 1893,
Republished 1954 by Collins
The wee quotes at the beginning of each chapter are from
various sources including the 'I Ching' and 'Sun Tsu's Art
of War'.
The quote in Chapter 4 comes From 'The Sunscreen Song' Baz
Luhrman/Mary Schmich.
The 'Land of brown heath and shaggy wood', Glentrool, and
The Cauldron of the Dungeon still exist, unspoilt,
unchanged to this day. Bell, Dick and Crockett would have
no difficulty in recognising their surroundings if they
were to return tomorrow to this little known corner of
Scotland. The Grey Man still looks out, serenely, wisely,
over the hills as he has done for millennia - and will
continue to do so long after we've gone.
Thanks to all who've taken the time to read this account of
my youth. I hope some of you may be encouraged to visit the
places mentioned one day, perhaps even gaze upon the face
of The Grey Man.
Thank you.
Bob Wilson. Fort William Jan 2006
Robert Wilson. 'The Safety Man' 1951-2010
"Only the rocks remain."
Original story and material © 2005 Bob Wilson
Layout, editing and additional material © Dave Sloan
2005, 2012, 2016
'tachras' and 'Winding Yarn' © Dave Sloan 2005, 2012,
2016