We had a jolly afternoon with the usual crop of dirty fingernails, whose owners were dispatched to the cloakroom with hot water, soap, and nail scrubbers. Feet were often rather smelly through no real fault of the child or their mother but because wellington boots were worn nearly all the time due to the weather conditions. Feet were never cramped or misshapen, as wellies mould to the foot, but as rubber does not allow the skin to ‘breathe’, athlete’s foot was not uncommon.
The children loved to watch each other’s hair being inspected, and there was not the slightest embarrassment if I found some ‘wee craturs’. Even the child concerned would laugh heartily and depart with me to the washbasins to have their hair treated. They always found fun in the inspection.
‘Ach, Nurse, wee Henry’s got big fat nits.’
‘No, I havenae—they are skinny wee things wi’ brown boots.’ Laughter at this.
‘Ally has mice in his hair instead—there’s that much of it, Nurse. ’Tis a haystack, indeed.’
A good-natured scuffle would ensue. Then, when we got to the feet, there would be more joking.
‘Phew! I canna breathe for Archie’s feets.’
‘Look! There’s better tatties than on our croft ’tween Murdo’s toes.’ And so it went on.
Most of the children were from the same kind of background, their fathers being sailors, fishermen, crofters, or working at the pier or the harbour. Their empirical knowledge of the island was most important.
Where was the best place to fish? Where could you see eagles soaring? Who made the best dumpling and was therefore worth a visit? Where was it safe to swim? Roddy had bought a new boat and he might give us a ride to Rhuna. There was a dead seal on the beach that would be worth a look. And so on. Things that mattered in their young lives!
I finished the afternoon’s work with a certain amount of regret and gathered up the protesting Geordie to take him home. Even if he stayed away from school now, the damage was probably already done and we might well be in for an epidemic.
THIRTY-FOUR
DIY island style
Living on a remote island meant that many things normally accomplished by professionals or skilled specialists had to be done by ourselves. Painting and decorating, small carpentry jobs, hair cutting, bookkeeping, some house repairs and maintenance were but a few of our DIY ‘skills’. But added to these, in my case, were all manner of extras that would not have appeared in any nurse’s job description, had there been such a thing!
I had been in twice-daily attendance on a young girl who had suffered from multiple sclerosis for much of her 22 years. It was only due to the devotion of her mother that she was still able to take part in everyday family life, albeit from her bed. Trisha was a pretty girl but due to being so inactive—in fact, virtually static—she had become very heavy. Until recently, her sister had been on hand to help Maggie with the lifting, bathing, and bed changing, but she had married and moved away, so Maggie had to call on district nursing care: myself and my relief nurse.
Maggie ran the post office near the pier in Dalhavaig. Her husband, Trisha’s father, was away at sea for much of the time, and so the whole burden of the business—customers, mail, pensions, suppliers, and so on—fell on Maggie, together with the care of Trisha. She had become exhausted, and Dr Mac had arranged a bed in the local hospital for Trisha so that her mother could have a much-needed holiday. This was the big day.
I was at the post office getting Trisha bathed and ready for the short journey to the hospital—only a couple of miles distant—while Maggie attended to customers.
The steamer was at the quay and would depart in about an hour, and tourists were buying and posting cards before leaving, so that the ‘Papavray’ postmark would appear on their mail. Maggie also sold little trinkets and ‘touristy’ things to supplement the rather meagre income from the post office.
At last, Trisha was ready in a warm, red-wool jacket worn over her nightclothes, tucked in a red tartan rug, and looking forward to the short ride to the hospital. Ramsey arrived with his ambulance and came trundling up the steep path with the stretcher. Although the house was roughly divided into post office and living accommodation, there was just one path to the only door, so he had to find his way through the preoccupied tourists. After calling a greeting to Maggie, he started towards the downstairs room where Trisha had her bed.
In the doorway, he stopped. I looked at him, wondering what could be wrong: we had done all this several times before for various reasons.
‘Hah,’ he said. ‘Things have changed here since last time.’ He looked around the tiny hallway.
I suddenly realised what he meant. Since the last time that we had stretchered Trisha out, some alterations had been made. In order to allow a little more privacy for the family, an inner wall had been built, dividing the already tiny hallway into two parts. One side was the entrance to the post office, which had once been the sitting room of the house, and the other led to the room where we now stood, pondering the situation.
‘We’ll no get ye round here, Trisha ma girl,’ announced Ramsey.
Trisha laughed. ‘We didn’t think of that, did we?’
Ramsey upended the stretcher and stood it against the wall while he perched on the end of the bed and rubbed his chin. He was concocting a plan. His gaze was on the window: an unusually big one for a croft house. It had been enlarged so that Trisha could see the sea and the garden and even the path to the post office from her bed. She could wave to people she knew, and many local folk dropped in to see her. Pension day was always very busy, and then Trisha had a constant stream of neighbours in to say hello.
I began to study the window myself. ‘Is it a possibility, do you think, Ramsey?’
‘Aye, it’ll have tae be. I’ll be seein’ Maggie for some tools.’ And off he went.
I wondered how Maggie would take the news that the whole window would have to be removed. It had a sturdy wooden frame that was cemented into the two-foot-thick cottage wall. There were two opening windows, one at each side, but both quite small, and one large—but fixed—pane. The whole thing would have to come out. And Ramsey obviously intended to do it himself.
At that moment, Ramsey returned with a worried-looking Maggie. ‘Ach. We were stupid, indeed,’ she said, and turning to Ramsey she asked, ‘Do you think you can get it out in one piece?’
‘Aye. I’m thinkin’ if Nurse holds the windy while I chip the cement away, we’ll manage it. We’ll stand it against the outside wall and Donald [his son] will come this evening to fix it back in. Do you have the cement, Maggie?’
Maggie laughed. ‘No. I have no call to sell cement in a post office.’ I admired her placid acceptance of the situation.
‘I’ll be gettin’ some from the crofters’ store, then.’ He paused, frowning. ‘It’ll have to be on the way to the hospital; the store will be closed later, foreby.’
So it seemed that the nurse, in full uniform, would help remove a window frame and that a bag of cement would accompany the patient in the ambulance to the hospital before being delivered. Nothing surprised me any more!
We pushed Trisha’s bed against the far wall, away from any bits of flying cement, and, without waiting to cover carpet or furniture, Ramsey attacked the window with enthusiasm while I hastily retrieved the curtains that were attached to the frame.
We worked on and gradually the frame loosened.
‘Hold on to it, Nurse! ’Tis comin’ out!’
‘Ramsey! I can’t hold the entire weight of this,’ I cried in a panic, imagining the mayhem if I dropped it. Glass can be heavy and the wooden frame was decidedly chunky.
Ramsey looked at me. ‘We’ll try to balance it on the sill wall while I nip round to the outside . . .’ And before I could protest, he had ‘nipped’ outside. By this time, my hands and uniform dress were covered in cement dust and my hair had fallen from its restraining bun. We had attracted quite a crowd of spectators, and I must have looked a sight, but I was really past caring and, an
yway, the tourists were enjoying themselves, as they had not bargained for so much entertainment! But one large man in a ‘toori-bonnet’ laughed loudly and so, inadvertently, attracted Ramsey’s attention.
Hailing him, Ramsey ordered, ‘Come you here and help me!’
A very startled man stepped into the garden and approached.
‘Hold here,’ he was ordered, and the end of the window frame was thrust into his hands. He was instructed to take the weight and ‘no drop it’. Ramsey then nipped back inside to take the weight from me and we began pushing it towards the man outside. It was now more than halfway out, so Ramsey nipped outside again to join the man, who, beginning to enjoy his adventure, called to his family to take a photograph ‘fert chaps in’t factory at ’ome’.
Between them, they manoeuvred the window, amazingly intact, onto the ground and propped it up against the wall. I was thanking the weather gods for the balmy, sunny day. I could imagine only too well what the scenario would have been in our usual gales.
I popped upstairs to wash my hands and dust myself down, and when I returned I found Ramsey, still covered in cement dust, placing the stretcher beside Trisha’s bed. Maggie briefly left her customers to help us lift her daughter onto it.
‘How are we to get it onto the window sill—if you can call it that?’ I wanted to know.
Maggie chipped in, ‘I’d like to help but look at yon queue! And the steamer’s gettin’ ready to leave, so they’ll all be clamourin’ to be served.’
‘Get you back to them, Maggie,’ said Ramsey. ‘We’ll manage.’
I looked at him with horror. I’m quite a strong person, and obviously well used to lifting patients, but the idea of the two of us trying to lift a sixteen-stone girl onto the window hole, through it and down the path to the ambulance . . . well!
‘Nay, dinna worry, Nurse.’ Ramsey winked and cocked his head. ‘We’ll make them work for their entertainment.’
He turned towards the window hole. ‘I want three strong men,’ he bellowed to the gaping crowd.
There was some shuffling, and then three men detached themselves from the throng and approached, grinning sheepishly. Ramsey marshalled one man to hold one end of the stretcher with him and instructed the other two to hold the other end.
‘Now, when I say “lift”, you LIFT,’ he ordered. ‘We’ll put her on the wall [the sill] and then gently push her forward about three or four feet. Then we [he indicated the man beside him] will come round and take this end again.’ He looked at the men’s rather dazed faces. ‘Clear?’
They nodded wordlessly.
Under Ramsey’s barked orders, the rather involved process was completed and all four men eventually stood outside, one at each ‘corner’ of the stretcher. Trisha was enjoying every minute! Taking full advantage of the press-ganged help, Ramsey marched them all down the path and into the waiting ambulance, carrying the stretcher. I followed with Trisha’s possessions and made her comfortable.
We thanked the helpers, who trotted off to the waiting steamer. It transpired that Maggie had rung Rhuari and asked him to delay its departure, and everyone had been happy to oblige. What a tale the tourists would have to tell when they arrived home!
Maggie came out to say goodbye to Trisha. She’d go to see her in the hospital before leaving tomorrow.
‘Donald will be here after work to put the windy back.’ Ramsey looked around. ‘We made a wee mess, didn’t we?’ he remarked.
Maggie sighed. ‘What’s worrying me is how are we to get her back in again if Donald puts the window back?’
Ramsey slapped his head. ‘I’d no thought o’ that! But, indeed, we canna leave it all open.’ He pondered. ‘Oh well, we’ll just have to do the same thing all over again.’
And with that, he climbed into his ambulance, we all waved to Trisha, and off they went to the hospital. But presumably to the crofters’ store first for the cement!
THIRTY-FIVE
Echo House
So another season was coming to a close as we left September behind. Not for us the sudden mass exodus from hotels and B&Bs the weekend before the schools started their autumn term. Our tourism was not primarily based on families with school-aged children. Many of our visitors were retired or early retired folk, who toured from hotel to hotel throughout the Highlands and Islands in the comfort of a well-sprung car. When they got to Papavray and her neighbouring islands, they certainly needed the springs! Because many folk were unused to passing places, there were many dented bumpers and some serious crashes, but Archie earned a lot of pocket money pulling cars out of ditches with his tractor.
Other big groups to descend on the island in all but the very worst of the winter weather were the climbers. They were usually students on long vacations from university or beginners being led and taught by large booming professionals in yellow jackets. Our Ben Criel, although steep and tortuous, was only about 2,000 feet and was probably ideal for the beginners.
Even so, accidents happened. Every year, there were at least two tragedies among the various islands that made up the Western Isles. It was not unusual for gloom to settle on Papavray as yet another enthusiastic young man tumbled to his death on our rocky hills.
Papavray could only accommodate about thirty people comfortably at any one time in the hotels and B&Bs. Some hardy souls pitched tents when and wherever took their fancy, while many stayed with friends or relatives on the island.
There was one building on the island, however, that did not fall into any of the usual categories for holiday accommodation. It rejoiced in the name of ‘Echo House’. Not so very many years ago it had been an old bothy with an attached barn, perched in a dip in the hills high on the side of Ben Criel. The brave couple who now lived there were not locals. Brian (Bri to everyone) and Dij (I never found out what her real name was) had been climbing on Papavray one summer some years ago and had been unable to find anywhere to stay. In most mountainous regions, climbers are housed in hostels, but there was nothing of that nature on the island. Brian and Dij realised that they had found a gap in the holiday business and they set about with a will to fill it. They both gave up jobs in the south, and Brian rented the bothy, improving and extending it. Incredibly, they opened for business the very next spring and were immediately inundated with enquiries. The next year, another bit was added, and the same thing seemed to have been going on every year since.
It was not palatial. It did not pretend to be. Brian and Dij knew that climbers needed and expected only the bare essentials: comfortable beds for weary limbs after a long day’s climb, masses of good food to fuel the same limbs for the next day, and somewhere warm to relax in the evenings and to dry their clothes and boots. The couple also knew that they needed to keep the prices down, as most climbers were young and impecunious. So the bothy’s interior walls were still of rough stone, the heating was by huge peat fires, cooking by a secondhand (maybe fourth- or fifth-hand) range, lighting by oil lamps, and the toilets were ‘out back’. There were two dormitories and one or two double rooms, all with bunk beds. Brian had knocked two of the downstairs rooms together to make a farmhouse-type kitchen, and everyone ate together round a large wooden table. The place was a Mecca for climbers!
There was always a happy if rather frenetic atmosphere in Echo House, and those two people worked harder than anyone I know, but I never heard a complaint from them about the workload nor from their visitors about the primitive conditions: only praise for the friendly welcome and physical comforts.
But here again, the cruel world did not pass them by. I suppose it was inevitable that as most of the island climbers stayed at Echo House this was also whence most of the casualties came. Unsurprisingly, Brian trained and joined the mountain rescue team, and many of the unfortunates were brought back to the hostel. The injuries were often serious, and one year alone there were two deaths from Echo House. A sad end to two young lives.
Echo House? How did it get its name? Exactly as one would imagine. You can stand at the front o
f the building and shout whatever comes to mind and your voice will return to you from the surrounding hills not once, not twice, but several times until it dies away like the final notes of the ‘Last Post’. A truly unearthly experience.
Whilst filling up with petrol at the garage, I bumped into Dij, and as this was a rarity we decided to brave the draughts (and the coffee) of the pier ‘café’ to have a chat. We chose a table by the window so that we could see the steamer leaving. But this was no ordinary departure.
Dij and I watched with sadness as a group of soberly clad men and women followed a coffin onto the boat, doubtless bound for a resting place many miles away. It was, once again, a young man from Echo House who was now making his last voyage, and Dij had driven his friends here.
Dij was a motherly soul who felt these losses deeply. Some of the youngsters had been coming to Echo House for years, so she knew them well.
‘Only twenty-two,’ she murmured. ‘He had married since the last time he came and his wife—widow—is pregnant.’
We were silent for a while as we watched the ship slip quietly away from the quay and steam off.
Dij sighed. ‘I suppose it’s not all gloom,’ she said. ‘We do have fun and romance and terrifically interesting people to stay.’
‘Very hard work, though,’ I ventured.
‘Oh, I don’t mind. I wouldn’t want it any other way.’ She paused. ‘Shall I tell you a funny story?’
‘Anything to cheer us up would be good,’ I suggested.
It seemed that a few weeks ago Dij had been in the kitchen when the knocker (a huge piece of driftwood that Brian had found on the shore) thumped on the door. She happened to be wearing a cooking apron that had been bought for Brian to wear when washing dishes. Brian is about 6 feet 5 inches. and 16 stone while Dij is less than 5 feet and rather plump, so as she answered the door she must have looked a bit like an animated tent. She had been taken by surprise: in an isolated spot like Echo House, you do not expect ‘droppers in’.
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