Back of Beyond - January 2006

Happy New Year to everyone, all the best for 2006. New Year here was very exciting, if only because I stayed up for it. On Hogmanay there was an article in the paper which listed the '5 best places to see in the New Year' and oddly enough Lewis wasn't on it. One reason might be that New Year's Day was on Sunday. This meant that the Hogmanay fireworks were held on Friday night, not Saturday, even though they were all finished by 8.30, and also that there was no first footing until Monday. A few defiant fireworks went off over Stornoway after the bells, and as my neighbour said in a doom laden voice, "they'll have been noticed". So I think the list Lewis is likely to top is the '5 worst places to see in the New Year', and this year I'll just go to my bed as usual.

As the old saying goes, 90 days is a long time when you're waiting for a Dating Extravaganza. This being the case, it seems like a good idea to get in the mood with a pre-Fank vintage Jeremy Godwin competition. The following three letters have all been published in the Arran Banner, but only one of them is genuine. Can you spot a real Godwin, or are you deceived by an fake? Answers on a postcard please. First correct answer will receive a copy of The Collected Godwin Letters and set of bookshelves.

Letter 1

Sir,
Dear me! Can Arran afford stagnation? One gibs at the grim prospect stalking the land, but one must take that path. One needs an eagle eye to avoid being shot down, and an owl's wisdom rightly to cull the wheat from the chaff, and not fawn on those who would be mighty. Of course, we all need dough. Have a heart! Let us not fall behind. Consider all the points. Why be needlessly on the rocks, with good relations poisoned and facilities made fallow, a rut not to be envied?
A word to the wise! Topical word search. Just that!
Yours etc,


Letter 2

Sir,
I must concur, whilst maintaining a parallel course, for each man must scrape his own turnip. Indeed, oil and metaphors do not mix, and there is much troubled water around Arran on which to pour them.
Certainly, we all need dough, but we need bread also, so it is someone's irk to knead to sate our needs!
Let us step back for a moment and take a clear view. For 'improvements' read change - hopefully loose, a prospect to raise the most downtrodden of casts. Let them come with full bellys, that there may be sufficient for us all to join the feast, and will surely mend one anothers fuses. For the wise will remember that today is but one of many. As, it seems, are the wise.
Yours etc,


Letter 3

Sir,
Is it not the fate of man to be driven blindly before the all-seeing eyes of destiny? A closed heart may not indicate an open mind, or an open mind a cheery smile, but honest comment and thoughtful discussion are precious, to be cherished a the limpet clings to its rock. An owl in a box harms no man etc. Rational thought raises us above the clouds in the sea of unconsciousness which swamps the foggy mists of the cold, frosty minds of the animal kingdom. Yet arrows amongst thorns are the cruellest blows, for words said in jest may be taken to heart, hurting ourselves as much as each other.
No man is an island, and no island a man. (Except the Isle of Man, which is, literally speaking.) The tides of history cast the flotsam and jetsam of modern thought ashore on the beaches of our minds, where with luck they will find fertile soil, though many will fall on shingley ground.
Yours etc,


Just a wee extra for fun - anyone who guesses the year they were published wins a signed photograph of the man himself. Have fun.

So here it is, the moment we've all been waiting for - who has won the star prize in the Fanktastic Jeremy Godwin Competition?

First of all, many thanks to all those who entered, but there can only be one winner, and it is......

CALUMSENSIBLE from The Literary and Philosophical Institute, Cross, who correctly guessed that Letter 1 was the real Godwin. Congratulations Calum, and I hope The Collected Letters of Jeremy Godwin and accompanying bookshelves are the kind of things you are looking for.

Thanks to Alan Spey, author of Letter 2 and Mick Blunt, scribe of Letter 3.

Well done to Sunny, the only one to guess the year they were printed, you win a copy of the newly published 'Jeremy Godwin; Arran's Unsung Hero' by G.J. Diwon, although I'm afraid your guess was a bit short of the mark. The right answer was 1993.

All prizes will be awarded at the Cremola Suite.

Ok, that filled in a wee bit of time, how many days to go?

On this evening two years ago I went with my partner and a friend to see the film Touching the Void. Unfortunately we didn't manage due to the fact that I had made a mistake reading the cinema programme which meant that we missed the showing completely, arriving in time for some incomprehensible foreign language film instead. (It will already be clear that this baby was not born on Lewis.) This was not at all suitable; I had determined on Touching the Void, not only because I had been gripped by the compelling, inspiring and just plain amazing story in book form several years earlier, but also as I was heavily pregnant and due to have the wean the next day. When I say that, I mean I knew I was having it the next day because I was having an elective Caesarean section. (This had nothing to do with being 'too posh to push', I might add, as anyone who knows me will verify without a nano-second's hesitation.) With two previous C-sections under my belt, as it were, the operation was not too joyous a prospect. Hence the choice of film; what could be more ideal than a mountaineering near death disaster for bucking up the spirits, after all, that must be a lot worse than having a baby. Plus it had a happy ending - a must for any woman with mad pregnancy hormone problems. So I was gutted when it became apparent that it was not to be. We sat in the pub instead, which was all very well, but then all I wanted to do was drink vast amounts of beer, which, in fairness, would probably have taken my mind off it, but it would maybe have been a little bit embarrassing to turn up at the maternity suite at 8 am the next day with a roaring hangover.

I watched the film a few months later and concluded that it would indeed have been just the job for the occasion, so its a shame that I (definitely, under no circumstances, none whatsoever) won't be able to take advantage of this knowledge. But if there are any large ladies having nightmares about surgeons and sharp knives, I would highly recommend it. I wonder if it would work the other way round - maybe the next time a mountaineer finds themselves horribly injured on some scarily high peak, unable to get down, they should think to themselves - ah well, at least I'm not having a baby by Caesarean section. Try it chaps, let me know how it goes.

I had better go now and check that I have not burned my soon- to- be- two- year- old little boy's birthday cake. How time flies. I might even watch Touching the Void again, for old times sake.