The dastardly scorries get their comeuppance
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The Real Mackay by Dan Mackay
Mr Grinling the lighthouse keeper has been having a time of it, lately.
On Monday something terrible happened. It seems the scavenging seagulls stole his lunch. And if that wasn’t bad enough the brazen varmints did the same thing on Tuesday and Wednesday, too.
And even when Mrs Grinling came up with an ingenuous plan to get the cat to scare them away on Thursday it didn’t work and Mr Grinling had to go hungry, again!
However, my six-year-old granddaughter Carla writes that a superb plan to feed them mustard sandwiches finally had the desired effect and the dastardly scorries have not been seen since. And Mr Grinling, Carla tells me, has had a ‘lovely lunch’!
Poor Mr Grinling should perhaps write to the Tory minister responsible for ‘levelling up’. It seems only fair that neglected workers in the far north should have access to workplace facilities – like a decent canteen – that their comrades in the southern metropolis take for granted.
Talking of levelling up, or maybe more accurately paving over, wasn’t that a superb letter in the Groat the other week? Thurso’s Ian McElroy has revealed ‘a new way of looking into the past’ which entails closer scrutiny of the burgeoning minefields of potholes across the county.
It seems all sorts of goodies are emerging: Roman artefacts, Samian pottery, Viking brooches, you name it… McElroy joked it could lead to the council designating them as sites of special archaeological interest and, as such, they would have to be protected for future generations. All tongue-in-cheek, of course!
I think his letter had something to do with the spat between our elected representatives and their frustrated critics who argue that we in the north have been forgotten. McElroy may have used the phrase ‘Highland Council doesn’t give much of a toss about us up here’.
It must be a thankless task being a councillor nowadays, especially when decisions appear to be made far from home with outcomes – if, indeed, there are any – that do little to redress the priorities of the community.
I was reminded of another great leveller the other day with the very sad news of the sudden death of a former colleague. She had not long retired. Life can seem so cruel and unfair at times. Was it too much to expect after a long career caring for others that she could enjoy some welcome respite for herself?
And then news of a bleak cancer prognosis for someone else I know. What an unimaginable dilemma. People to tell, preparations to be made… Just how does one dig deep to find some sort of inner resolve to come to terms with something none of us would want to confront?
When the Orkney poet George Mackay Brown was given his own cancer diagnosis, he once explained to friends that we are all dying, only some faster than others. It does put life in perspective. I must moan and feel sorry for myself less often.
I think that’s why I loved Carla’s school story about Mr Grinling so much. Think of all the kids in their classrooms up and down the land doing their lessons, learning to read and write, discovering the great big wide world and trying to make sense of it all.
The innocence of it – and the injustice when the scorries steal your sandwiches!
