NORTHBOUND
By GRAHAM WATSON
IN the period before the war, when the journalistic silly season lasted throughout the year, a competition was held in one of the newspapers to discover the word in the English language that had, in the minds of its readers, the most pleasurable associations. As I considered that I could forecast the result I did not compete, and I was not more than mildly gratified when I learnt that "Mother " was, indeed, the winner. I was, however, disappointed that my own choice, " northbound," was not even amongst the first twelve. For here is a word that affects me so powerfully that, even when I read it painted prosaically across the tunnel of the tube to Cockfosters, it gives me a sensation of hardly definable excitement.
I am open to argument concerning the prefix. I can see that there are some who, sharing with me the belief that any railway station is the gateway to paradise, will not share with me my choice of destination. Some of therb, if ability to travel is confined to this island, will be irresistibly drawn to the grey stone villages nestling in the folds and valleys of the Cotswolds ; some of them will turn to the flowered fen-land of East Anglia ; still others will wish to feel again the yellow sugar sands of Dorset draining through their fingers as they lie stretched at ease on those lovely beaches. I will not quarrel with their choices whatever they may - be. It is sharing the spirit of release which is important. And I find my release northbound.
For this reason King's Cross and Euston stations are enchanted territory. For froin them there once departed, and will soon depart again, those trains so famous that their names should be spoken only in measured respect: Coronation Scot, Highlandman, Silver Jubilee, Flying Scotsman, Irish Mail. What a bradshaw of giants! Before the war in August, when London became a furnace and the heat rose in waves from the burning flags of the pavements, I used to seek refreshment some evenings in a visit to these northern termini. There I would wander down platforms gay with the colourful throng of those leaving for their holidays on river and grouse-moor. Slowly the sleek sleepers would fill with tweed-suited ladies of fashion leading spaniel and pointer, tweed-suited gentlemen of leisure grasp- ing gun-case and rod. I watched them enviously as they chatted on the platform prior to departure, conscious that the following morning they would awake and see through the carriage window that lovely sweep as the train drops down from Dalnaspidal to Newton Stewart, conscious, too, that they would breakfast in Inverness, with cream on their porridge and bannxks with their grilled trout. I was envious of their good fortune. I was happy to share it vicariously.
I cannot deny that there is no other part of Great Britain that gives me such unqualified pleasure as the hills of Scotland that lie north of Dunkeld, through Blair Atholl, past Kingussie and on to Larg standing at the gateway of the Sutherland country. There is enchantment down the road from Larg, round Loch Shin to Loch Assynt and away up the serrated coast-line to where Cape Wrath pushes its nose, the north-west extremity of Britain, into the Atlantic. Nor has a man the right to speak for his country until he has followed the coast-road—it was little more than a track when last I travelled it,—that runs from Bettyhill to Scourie, then across the ferry at Kylesku and on to Inchnadamf and Ullapool.
I recall once at nightfall putting my car in the ditch not far from Durness. It was an easy mistake to make as the road' was scarcely wider than my wheelbase. I walked back a few miles to the nearest inn, for the traffic is sparse along those northern roads, and asked for succour from the gillies drinking in the bar after a hard day on the hills. They came gladly, piling into the mail van which is their only means of contact with the uncivilised world, sixty miles
away at the nearest railway station. My car was soon back on its four wheels and together we returned to the inn where I planned to spend the night. I gave them a small consideration for their kind- ness and they asked me, since I was a guest in the hotel, and the bar was then closed, whether I could convert it into something more remedial to the thirst which their labours had engendered. I bought some cases of ale from the landlord which were piled with proper consideration on to the van and, at their invitation, went with them to the side of the loch, where, until an early hour in the morning, I was privileged to share their company. The memory of that evening with the moon striping the waters of the loch and the music of the waves lapping the shore, an undertone of harmony to the liquid Gaelic voices singing their beautiful, traditional folk songs, will always be with me.
But why choose one particular memory from a storehouse so plentifully stocked? What of the whitewashed inn that lay sheltered in a lip under the 1-eadland where the surge of the Atlantic spent itself on the rocks beneath? The best lochs lay distant some nine miles from the hotel down a villainous road, remarkable even in a countryside notorious for its bad communications. These lochs were made accessible to the angler by means of a T Model Ford kept for the purpose by the landlord and stored, when not in us; in a shed which also provided shelter for his hens. It would be idle to pretend that this vehicle was in its prime of life. From the standpoint of the passengers its most apparent deficiencies were the hood, the seat-cushions, the windscreen and two doors. Its driver was, however, fully as redoubtable. His name was Angus. He was a raw-boned Scot of indeterminate age but possessing that natural dignity and charm which are so often encountered amongst Celts. His approach to the idiosyncrasies of his charge was a peculiarly personal one. From his point of view, as driver of the vehicle, its principal shortcoming lay in the tyres, all four of which, at the time of my visit, had slow punctures. Each of them could, I am sure, have been repaired without difficulty, but Angus was not a member of the school that believed in maintenance. Each morning when the anglers were ready to leave for their fishing he pumped just enough air into the tyres to take the car to its destination and back again. Just enough, never too much, frequently too little. When, as often happened as a result of the continuously escaping air, he felt the steering getting dangerously flabby, he increased speed to the limit so that he might get back to the hotel' before he found himself running on the rims. The result for the passengers in the cushionless back seats was memorable. When I suggested to him that it would, in the long run, save time to mend the punctures, he said " And for what would I be wanting to save time? " As he lived sixty miles from the nearest station and had only the nets to mend and the lobster pots to mind, I could see the force of his argument.
Then there was the inn from which we were ejected because we " tickled " a trout on a Sunday. We were not, of course, allowed to fish in an orthodox fashion, for the Sabbath is strictly observed. So we wandered away from the village, up into the hills where the curlews were wheeling and crying overhead—I remember seeing a golden eagle that afternoon ! —and the sun was washing with gold the dying bracken. We followed the course of a gay, little burn which went bouncing down the hillside on its way to the loch far below. It was full of pools, and the flash of a speckled trout in one of them proved too strong a temptation. We dammed the head of the pool and drained it of its dark brown water. We caught the trout in our bare hands as it lay trembling under a rock. To our shame we killed it and bore it back in triumph to the inn. The landlord was stern in his refusal to forgive the miserable affair. He asked us to leave the following day.
It is seven years since I felt the spring of heather underfoot, heard the scream of a reel under the weight of a heavy fish, listened to the lilt of softly spoken Gaelic. It is, I daresay, seven years since a fashionable crowd thronged Euston and King's Cross and the' sleepers stood inviting at the platform. But during those seven years in strange countries and hotter climates my thoughts have drifted back to Scotland where the hills climb away into the distance and the streams run brown and crystal clear. This summer, God willing, I shall be northbound.
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